Capital Punishment & the ‘Not So Blind’ Eye of Justice

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Currently 36 states have prisoners sitting on “death row”, awaiting their date with destiny, a.k.a. capital punishment. However not everyone on death row ends up meeting their fate at the hands of whatever state they are being held prisoner of. All of those condemned will not be executed, in fact, many death row inmates will either rot away behind bars, eventually dieing of old age, or even be exonerated and set free to once again walk the streets.

So who dies and who doesn’t? I mean seeing as though it is “death row” and all, one would have to imagine that the “winners” and “losers” had to be decided by pure luck more then anything else. Nope, not true at all – Luck has nothing to do with the decision, and now there’s scientific proof able to back this reality up.

Researchers say they have built a computer system that can predict with 92% accuracy which death row inmates are most likely to be executed, a development they hope will lead to a fairer appeals process.

“According to the system, the death row inmates most likely to be executed are those with the lowest levels of education. The researchers, from Texas A&M University Texarkana and Loyola University New Orleans, report in the International Journal of Law and Information Technology, that neither the severity of the crime nor race the latter of which is often cited as a key factor in convictions are reliable forecasters of a prisoner’s fate.”

“The system consists of 18 computer processors designed to analyze data the way that a human brain does by studying one set of data and comparing it with another data set to find similarities and differences. In this case, researchers fed the system information about 1,000 death row prisoners, including their sex, age, race, highest year of school completed, the state in which they were incarcerated, and whether they were ultimately executed or spared. Once the system had established patterns (of traits most prevalent among the executed) from this initial pool, the researchers fed it similar information about 300 more prisoners (leaving out whether they had lived or died). The system, using logic it had developed from the first set of data, correctly predicted the outcome for 276 (92%) of the prisoners.”

Does anyone find this surprising? I mean really – I think it is pretty well known that those sitting down in “old sparky” or being strapped down to a board, pumped with chemicals via a syringe, are predominantly uneducated, poor, and/or a minority.

That said, I have to admit that I don’t find myself opposed to the “rationale” behind the death penalty, a matter of fact I am actually favor the practice of capital punishment if it’s carried out the way in which it was intended – Without prejudice.

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