Assessing the Death Penalty

I am a Non Believer in the death penalty and abortion since I am a believer in the sanctity of life from womb to tomb. I was once in favor of the Death Penalty but since it has been abused in places like Cuba and the United States, it does not bode well. Even more, in certain areas of the USA, the people who receive the death penalty are African-Americans, Native Americans, Latins, and Inuit while the jury that gives members of these minorities the death penalty is the White Anglo Saxons. There have been incidents of Latins against Latins as well as African Americans against African Americans which will be discussed.

The Death Penalty has been a product of Republicans and Democrats. Who cannot forget that Ruben Cantu was executed by the State of Texas in 1993? The execution of Ruben Cantu occurred during the period of Ann Richards who was a Democrat. Ruben Cantu was born in 1966 and was killed by the State of Texas after being wrongfully convicted of first degree murder. One of the witnesses to the murder Juan Moreno [who was an illegal immigrant at the time] recanted his story about seeing Cantu killing and robbing his co worker Pedro Gomez one decade after Cantu was put to death. Because of no evidence, a recanted testimony by an illegal immigrant, and no confession; an innocent person was given the death penalty in the State of Texas. Now there is an attempt to clear the name of Ruben Cantu but regardless, the damage was done and a life was taken without reason.

Larry Griffin was another person wrongfully executed. Larry Griffin was executed by the State of Missouri in 1995 after being accused of killing Quintin Moss in a drive by shooting. The evidence against Larry Griffin was based on testimony by Robert Fitzgerald even though the evidence of circumstantial and there were no fingerprints on the car and weapons. The prosecution in his case did not reveal eyewitnesses that did not see Griffin and Griffin was killed protesting his innocence. In 2005, Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan in cooperation with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Funds conducted an investigation into the execution of Larry Griffin. Larry Griffin was found innocent. Again, it was too little and too late.

It is a shame that the United States of America as well as other countries in the American Continent have called themselves the New World but resort to Old World Tactics such as an Eye for An Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth.