Georgia’s execution: justice or state sanctioned murder?

The recent execution of Georgia inmate Kelly Gissendaner has triggered the old debate of the death penalty in the United States. Gissendaner was convicted of orchestrating the murder of her husband in 1997. Even though she did not physically murder her husband, she was sentenced to death, making her the first woman to be executed in the state of Georgia in 70 years.

In the past, I was a strong believer in the death penalty due to the heinous acts of violence that occur, such as rape and murder. However, too often, our judicial system is erroneous. There have been too many innocent lives that have been taken as a result of a wrongful conviction, such as the life of Mr. Troy Davis in 2011. In addition, there are times when the death penalty does not seem to be an appropriate punishment for a particular crime. But how do we measure what is “appropriate.”

Many will challenge my thoughts and argue that the statistics suggest the majority of executions are just and the judicial system has only made a few errors as it relates to state executions. Nonetheless, when one innocent life is lost or a small mistake is made during the judicial process–that is one life too many; thus it is time for us to ascertain the cause of this fiasco. If our system cannot ‘get it right’ 100% of the time, then we should not take the lives of anyone through state sanctioned murder. The moment you notice that punishments are no longer coherent with the crimes committed and innocent men and woman are being sentenced to death, it’s time to eliminate capital punishment.

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