Dear Editor,
Ryan Smith's piece (March 17) on the U.S. justice system showed not only a lack of understanding about many issues but also a startling lack of humanity.
In his article, he stated that those convicted and sentenced to death should be executed within two years.
However, the U.S. legal system is geared toward type-two errors -- that is, it is better to let a guilty man go free than to ever send an innocent man to the electric chair. While in practice it is clear that this idea doesn't always work, I think that it is generally better than the converse.
With the many possibilities of human error in the U.S. justice system -- because let's face it, though I've heard many claims about God's support for the Bush administration, I've yet to hear any U.S. official actually claim to be God or to be infallible -- shouldn't there be a lengthy time during which those people who are sentenced to the most ultimate punishment that we can possibly dole out have a chance to ferret out all possible mistakes?
There are many reasons for a lengthy appeal process that can't possibly all be listed within the space confined here; however, just a few are startlingly obvious. The chances of false confession in the U.S. justice system are startling high. While intuitively most people would adamantly insist that they would never confess to a crime they did not commit, the research on this issue paints a different picture. The criminal justice system is adept at getting what it sets out to, and many times that means a confession.
Not to mention it has only been three years since we decided that we shouldn't execute the mentally disabled and less than a month since we realized that there was an inherent problem with executing our juveniles!
I'm not even going to touch on the equally uninformed comments made about Damien Sanders and Robert Duplain -- neither of whom I personally am fond of or support -- except to say that this piece made me think that maybe the U.S. legal system wasn't the only thing hit by the stupid stick.
Katherine Price
sophomore
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