There are lots of reasons why there should be no such thing as the death penalty. There is the cold blooded barbarity of deciding to kill someone, preparing the site for the killing, people and method being selected to do the killing and the actual act of someone or group actually carrying out the killing. Then of course there is the fact of giving someone or institution the right to life or death over another human being, but above all that, there is the catalogue of innocent people who have spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit and those executed who were later proved to be innocent.
The following is just a very small list from America of those who were convicted of crimes they never committed,a is not unique in this field, here in the UK we have had innumerable case of people serving years in prison for crimes they never committed, thankful, in the UK we don't have the death penalty.
The U.S. justice system is far from perfect, and the evidence is all in the numbers. According to the Innocence Project, there have been 273 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States, and 17 of these people have served time on death row. Some of these cases happened when DNA testing wasn’t available, and others were caused by human and systematic errors, but either way, these innocent inmates have paid an unfortunate price. Here are 10 infamous inmates who were wrongly convicted.
http://www.criminaljusticedegreesguide.com/2011/08
