Eman Ghacham/The Cougar

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, the United States has enacted more than 1,550 executions. Just this year, 25 death row inmates throughout the United States have either already faced execution or are scheduled to.

The criminal justice system undoubtedly needs many overall changes, but capital punishment in particular is a barbaric, inhumane practice that subsists on discriminatory practices and lack of certainty.

Just last week, on Sept. 24, a man named Marcellus Williams was executed in Missouri. His punishment was taken out despite a forensic investigation showing that he was not the source of the DNA found on the murder weapon, after years of investigation, years of incarceration and the delay of his sentencing in 2017.

The St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office even conceded that the prior administration involved in Williams’ case had mishandled evidence that could have resulted in his exoneration. These willfully admitted “mistakes” resulted not in the punishment of prosecutors, but in the death of an innocent man.

This evidence should have at the very least raised enough uncertainty to remove him from death row. While the presumption of innocence is not a written constitutional right, it is necessary that every conviction is supported beyond a reasonable doubt, which his most certainly was not.

This, to put it frankly, is an abhorrent abuse of the justice system. This is a case of a man failed at every step by those who are supposed to uphold law and order, and a shameful display of injustice.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a lone occurrence. If Williams’ death is not a prime enough example of the sins of capital punishment, take Melissa Lucio.

In a similar case of improper consideration of evidence, Lucio is an inmate sentenced to death for the alleged murder of her daughter, which she falsely confessed to after five hours of coercive interrogation.

In Lucio’s initial trial in 2008, Judge Arturo Nelson refused to allow testimonies from a social worker and a psychiatrist; key input that had the potential to exonerate her. In no just system should a judge have the power to reject statements that could aid such a contentious case.

After 15 years of occupying death row, Lucio remains incarcerated with an unscheduled execution date. This is despite clear testimonies from her children that her confessions were false and brought about by predatory interrogation techniques when she’d reiterated her innocence over 100 times during the investigation.

Even looking aside from specific cases, statistics show that there is and has been a disproportionate amount of people of color, namely black men, on death row. While unsurprising considering the general incarceration rates of people of color, it’s worth noting just how overrepresented racial minorities are on death row in comparison to the percentage of the population they make up.

In addition to racial makeup, it’s important to keep in mind just how many sentences have been later discovered to be wrongful convictions. Once again, exonerations have been disproportionately imposed on black men, which serves as a reminder of how skewed the system is in regard to racial inequality.

While many will argue that the majority of death row inmates have committed atrocious crimes worthy of their punishment, contempt for the guilty should not allow damnation of the innocent. In a perfect world, capital punishment would be enacted on only guilty persons with 100% accuracy. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in.

A system so clearly beset with inequality and consistent mistakes should not hold the power to end lives. The death penalty, with all its errors and biases, holds no rightful place in our justice system.

While any wrongful convictions are an obstruction of justice, wrongful execution is an especially egregious mistake to make. Human life cannot be given back, and the death penalty spits in the face of what justice is meant to be.

Parker Hodges-Beggs is a journalism sophomore who can be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com

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“The death penalty needs an overhaul” was originally posted on The Cougar