Alistair CarmichaelMP writes for ePolitix.com about the Westminster Hall debate he will open today on the death penalty.
Last month I visited Troy Davis, a prisoner on death row in Georgia, USA. Troy has been on death row for 18 years, and last year came within two hours of his execution before a stay was granted. He has finally been successful in getting the US Supreme Court to order that an evidentiary hearing be held to look again at his case. Seven of the nine state witnesses against him have now recanted their evidence at his trial, claiming police threats and intimidation.
Troy Davis was convicted of killing a police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail. He was an innocent man who had done no wrong. Killing a man about whose guilt there is now massive doubt denies his family justice. One innocent man has been killed – how can it help to kill a second?
It is now 40 years since the UK finally abolished capital punishment, so why should this still matter to us? As an answer to that I can do no better than to quote the words of Martin Luther King Jr who, in his famous letter from Alabama Jail, wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. He was right.
The use of the death penalty is an inhumane and dehumanising force in the communities that still employ it. It is something which strikes at the very legitimacy of the rule of law and why we obey it. No criminal justice system can ever eliminate the possibility of error, and to incorporate capital punishment in a system that can make mistakes is to accept that it is acceptable to kill someone who may be innocent. From where then does the law derive its moral authority?
This is not just some theoretical abstract, but a reality for many people around the world awaiting a death sentence. One of these people was Todd Willingham, a Texan who in 2004 was executed and who, it is now accepted, had committed no crime.
Our criminal justice system has its faults – as any one of the Guildford Four or the Birmingham Six would testify. At least when these faults are recognised we can turn the key in the prison door and let the innocent walk free. That is something that can never be done for Todd Willingham.
Article Comments
If you were to follow this logic to its conclusion, you cannot send anyone to prison in case there is a mistake as wrongly sending someone to prison is inhumane.
I'm more concerned about the opposite extreme given very low conviction rates at the moment - ie. what happens if you err so hugely on the side of caution that many criminals go free creating more victims?
