Despite all of the controversies and questions surrounding it, the death penalty is still in place in many states today. Support for it has dropped because of the ambiguity surrounding capital punishment. As I said before, socio-economic issues continue to play a huge role in these controversies, because people who cannot afford private lawyers are provided defense by the state. Recently, there have been many reform efforts on enforceable standards for defense counsels. Reforms call for more money for defense counsels, claiming that court-appointed lawyers are paid well under $100 an hour.
The future is ambiguous as well. There are always going to be wealthy people who can afford the best lawyers, and there are also going to be those people who cannot afford a lawyer at all. Therefore, it is our job as citizens to help these indigents—we must make sure the defense counsels are skilled and experienced, and have the resources necessary to help their clients. Also, the court needs to define a set of standards for these lawyers. So far thirty-five of the thirty-eight states where the death penalty is legal have implemented standards for the defense counsels in capital cases.
It is important to stop the death penalty from being an arbitrary form of punishment. It is because of the appointment of defense counsels that capital punishment remains subjective—they vary by jurisdiction. For example, a judge might choose an attorney who openly supports the death penalty. Because of this, it is in our hands to make the changes that will make capital punishment fair. We must make defense counsels adequate by fighting for laws that establish standards and guidelines that must be met.
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6 comments:
Wow! I never knew that the judges did such things as to pick lawyers based on their beliefs. To be honest, I guess I never really thought about the process either. I think you make an extremely valid point when discussing the fact that there needs to be guidelines when these citizens are appointed lawyers by the state. They are already at such a great disadvantage because they do not have the means of money to pay for a top lawyer, why take away their right to pick their state appointed lawyer out? These defendants are fighting for their lives. It needs to stop being about politics and start being what our Constitution was based on, our freedom. Is the defendant not considered innocent until proven guilty? Then why are we setting them up? We need to start putting ourselves in these defendants shoes...we also need to get an ego check and stop considering these defendants as ways of pursuing political gains, and start seeing them as individuals with their freedom at stake.
I found this post incredibly coherent and easy to read, which is very effective in not turning you reader off with a lot of legal talk. You were short and concise but got your point across well. The only thing I can think of that would improve your argument is to expand more on the fact that you brought up that judges are allowed to choose the lawyers that will be representing the accused. That seems like a point that would hard to argue against.
I think you make your argument very well. You have done your research and backed up your argument with facts and sources. However, maybe you should focus more on what would happen if the issue remains unresolved, rather than concentrating so much on solutions. Also, you should embed your links directly into your post because it is distracting to have a long URL sticking out in the middle.
Your implications post,like c. ronaldo put it, was phenomenal. Besides that I guess you never said much about whats at stake and why wealthy will always have better lawyers (even though it's obvious).
You should deal more with how if the status quo is maintained, it will undermine the legal system. I think you imply many times socio-economic is responsible for the conviction of many innocent people and whatnot but did not explicitly address the issue of how this problem could exacerbate. Other than that I think your ideas for reform are extremely pertinent and would do a great deal to fix the problem.
Great point being made on the judge being able to select certain lawyers. I feel like you could stress a little more on how if defenedants continue on recieveing terrible legal counsel that justice will not be administered appropriately. I think also the issue of verdicts being arbitrary is a based on more than jsut economic class but I feel that it is one of the main issues behind arbitrary verdicts. It is a really interesting topic though. I just feel that your argument could a be a littl more defined
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