Questions We Can Help You To Answer

Before he left office two year ago, Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 164
inmates held in Illinois prisons. Ryan had declared a moratorium on the death penalty three years earlier after 13
prisoners were exonerated due to new DNA tests and other information showing the original evidence to be unreliable.
Of the 285 death penalty cases in Illinois since capital punishment was restored 23 years ago, half have been reversed on
appeal for new trial or sentencing for a variety of reasons: incompetent defense counsel, prosecutor misconduct, flawed
trials, and the introduction of DNA evidence that exonerated the defendant. A Columbia University Law School professor
has found that as jurisdictions use the death penalty more, the more often the cases are reversed. The most mistakes in
death sentencing occur in those areas that have the most aggressive death penalty policies. This same professor found
that over a twenty year period between 1975 and 1995, more than two-thirds of death sentences were reversed by
appellate courts because of serious errors. Governor Ryan appointed a special Commission on Capital Punishment in
Illinois which delivered its report in April 2002. Among the key recommendations were videotaping all police
interrogations, restricting the use of eyewitness identifications, and better training for trial attorneys. They also
recommended that a state's attorney's decision to seek the death penalty in a case be reviewed by a state-wide
commission. The majority of the Ryan Commission members also recommended abolishing the death penalty. I want
you to consider if this were to occur in Florida. Argue your side of either abolishing or maintaining capital punishment.
Provide supporting evidence from your research in a five page APA style research paper. 

Would like an argument in-favor of capital punishment as to the majority of the class has taken the opposite view point .