Death Penalty

and one of the reasons I am against it.

In 1984, Ruben Cantu was charged with murder. He was 17 years old. He professed his innocense up to the time of his execution at age 24. His co-defendant, David Garza, recently signed a sworn affadavit stating that Cantu wasn't with him the night of the killing. Juan Moreno, the lone living eyewitness, has said that he fingered Cantu because he was afraid of the police and believed that is what they wanted him to do.

This is another example of the law getting it wrong. And, one of the reasons I believe that the death penalty should be abolished. Not to save those who are guilty, but to protect those who are not. No innocent person should have to face dying at the hands of the state.

We have long known that errors are made at court. Yet we persist in killing innocents who are convicted in those courts, knowing that we could be making the ultimate error. And, in a society such as ours, which professes it's religion so loudly, one would think that such a barbarous act as executing a person would have ended long ago. Unfortunately, for Reuben Cantu, and others, what we say and what we do are polar opposites.