A few yrs back John Nolan a former Mudcatter was reporting on a story about a guy sitting on death row waiting to die, for a good number of yrs. John before moving stateside was a cop in Scotland. Because of his background in law enforcement he quickly became aware that not all was right in this case & as a reporter he started investigating. It became quickly & very apparent that an innocent had been wrongfully been sentenced to death. He was released & cleared. If John had not been reporting on the case it wouldn't have been a case of "one to many" it would've been a case of one more of the many who died as an innocent victim & now you're left with 2 or more victims needlessly 'DEAD'. With the new use of DNA we're finding that the percentage of innocent people sitting on death row are the poor & are minorities is high, more than 'one to many'. Some even had the system used against them during the trial process because someone has to pay, the pressure to fill the guilty gap is being applied, the pressure of a thirsty public cries out for blood, the manipulation of evidence so the wrong person was convicted by overzealous law enforcement officers or their agencies. We have a badly flawed process when it comes to handing out death sentences & yes, if one person is put to death wrongfully that's enough to abandon the whole system. If keeping the process we have to forfeit an innocent every so often let it start with forfeiting those in favor of the process or let it be their child. When it's you or a loved one who's the convicted innocent sitting & waiting to die then say you're in favor of the death penalty I'm pretty sure you'd have a change of heart. Not many will fight for the life of a poor soul waiting to be executed & no one will fight for you or yours either unless you can afford to buy yourself a top notch high priced attorney who'll be able to buy back your life. So it sometimes comes down to, if you're innocent, weither or not you've got enough money to prove how valuable you are.
Barry