Wrongly Accused

     The thought of being falsely accused probably makes everyone  as uncomfortable as It does myself. Our legal apparatus, for all of its success and efficiency still fails on occasion, but for such an esteemed device the consequences of failure are utterly tragic. Your good name that has taken your lifetime to acquire dissipating in all the time it takes for a charge to be summoned to court. Crippling legal fees are more of a moot point amongst years in prison apart from your life and loved ones, or in some very rare circumstances being put to death even. This is hard to swallow for those that are actually guilty of the crime they were accused, so how about those accused wrongly under false accusations.
     The wrinkles in our system are always trying to be ironed out, and as more efficient sciences replace shaky witness accounts, or at the very least confirm them, the numbers of such things are reducing every year. I am afraid to admit that there will always be such issues. For example, any tool used in the legal process must meet a minimum accuracy of 95 % to be mandated and fully weighed in a trial. Consider that if any said tool is 95% correct, and is used in 100 trials, it will be wrong 5 times, which can lead to 5 innocent people being punished. That being said, scientifically backed DNA sampling and other related methods are at success rates of over 99%, and improving rapidly. Our system is definitely far from perfect, but progress is being made, and hopefully a day will come soon where no innocent people are punished for the crimes of others.

Death to the Death Penalty?

          The code of Hammurabi states that we are too, "Let The Punishment Fit The Crime." Though I firmly believe that the great thinkers who criticized this ancient set of laws were right in that, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind", I do believe that the code was on to something. Take the death penalty for instance, the conclusion by a judge and jury that the person they found guilty has committed acts so heinous that their life should be terminated. I have no quarrel with this initially, but do find issues with the whole process in countries such as the United States. I believe that first, the death penalty should only be offered in cases of insurmountable and undeniable evidence in horrific crimes, such as the cases of serial killers, rapists, or very notable figures such Saddam Hussein. This is rather a moot point as I believe for the vast majority of all cases this is followed to the letter. A more pressing issue is that if we are going to use it, then lets do just that. It never ceases to fail whenever I change the channel to a Lockup:RAW marathon which is a television series on prisons and the life the prisoners lead In the correctional system, I do not have to wait long before each prison shows one of their more prominent criminals. It is here that the prisoner goes on to talk about his life, his bone chilling crime, and in many cases mentions that he has been on death row for almost as long as I have been alive. What are we waiting for? I understand there needs to be time for retrials and such but in sure cases what are we trying to accomplish? Lets get serious about capital punishment, or lets say Death to the Death penalty, but this in between stage we are in is just not doing it.