The Death Penalty needs to die. Today it was revealed that Lidell Lee was executed in 2017 in Arkansas when DNA evidence proved that an unknown male had held the murder weapon, and there was no DNA evidence to incriminate Lee.

Combine that with a report by the University of Michigan that found that half of all wrongful convictions occur because of Government misconduct, and it’s clear that the government cannot be trusted with the power of the Death Penalty.

There are many good people who work for justice, both in the police department and in the courts. Sadly there are also way too many examples of police falsifying evidence to convict. In one of the most egregious cases, New York State Trooper David L. Harding was interviewed for a job at the CIA. They asked him if he would break the law for his country. He replied that he had demonstrated this ability already as a trooper by fabricating evidence to “convict” people he knew were guilty.

This isn’t a topic that needs much debate. Too often our desire for “justice” leads us to demand someone pay the ultimate penalty for their crimes. We need to recognize that we ourselves are flawed, as is any system we create. We should remove violent criminals from society. People who hurt others and who cannot be rehabilitated should be prevented from harming others ever again. That does not require that we kill anyone. And removing the authority to kill people from government is a step in the right direction towards empowering people by depowering government.

There are too many examples of wrongful convictions and police misconduct to justify the death penalty. The state should not have the power to “hide evidence” by executing someone. It is time for our society to end the death penalty.

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