Using forensic technology, DNA evidence, and other tools, prosecutors can determine if someone is guilty of the crime they are accused. As we know, there have been in the past cases where innocent people were accused of capital punishment due to wrong evidence. In this for and against capital punishment essay, we will analyze legislation and determine how technology impacts the laws.
Technology and the Criminal Justice System
Technological advancements have brought many changes to the criminal justice system. Now there are more ways for prosecutors to find evidence at the crime scene, but the evidence has a higher level of accuracy, which means it’s more trustworthy. This is essential in cases of crimes that lead to capital punishment.
Since technology increases the accuracy of forensic and other types of evidence, there is a higher level of certainty when accusing someone of a crime. This concept has been considered one of the main issues in the field touched by several reseaches. As an argumentative essay on capital punishment suggest, the implementation of modern-day technologies has significantly decreased the number of false accusations. Searching for an essay capital punishment may also disclose additional significant advantages of using advanced technology in the criminal justice system.
Which Countries Have Capital Punishment Laws
Nowadays, capital punishment exists in several countries, each with different legislation. In general, however, the death penalty is reserved for a criminal that poses a danger to the community. This includes terrorism, espionage, sexual crimes, drug possession, desertion, and human trafficking.
In an against capital punishment essay, a student can refer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says that every person has the “right to live”. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, European countries and most of Latin America have abolished capital punishment, so it was removed from the legislation.
For a pro capital punishment essay, arguments can come from countries where the Criminal Justice System still includes the death penalty. The U.S. federal government, 34 of its states, states, and the majority of Asian and Islamic countries, with some isolated cases in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, still enforce the death penalty to maintain public order.
What Role Has Technology on Public Order
The biggest example of how technology can reform capital punishment legislation comes from the United States. Here, up until 2011, 273 who had been sentenced with the death penalty were found to be innocent with the use of DNA testing. This shows that the justice system is imperfect, and the risk of sentencing an innocent person to death is high.
Thus, in the United States, the use of technological tools in finding evidence has proved the need to reform legislation, so no other innocent people are killed for nothing. Since every person has a unique DNA that doesn’t change throughout life and is the same in every cell, DNA testing is extremely accurate in identifying a criminal who left biological evidence at the scene of a crime.
In theory, nobody can be accused of a crime they didn’t commit if their DNA is not found there. An essay against capital punishment can show that this technology has limits. If the evidence is not collected correctly and kept from contamination, the results of the analysis can come up wrong.
Another aspect of technology with an impact on public order is the spread of surveillance cameras. Video evidence can be the most accurate form of evidence, and it is widely used in trials all over the world, according to any law essay. As technology advances, there are more possibilities for identifying a criminal even from a great distance. For crimes punished with the death penalty, video evidence is impossible to determine misidentification.
When the Criminal Justice System Refuses Technology
In the United States, many legislators refuse to accept modern DNA testing methods for evidence testing, because of the risk of having to reopen old cases and discover that too many innocent people are waiting on the death row. A decade ago, only 48 American states had DNA access laws.
A good law essay on StudyDriver.com describes the legislative challenges regarding capital punishment and the use of technology in trials.
Although it’s difficult to make statistics, it is largely accepted that wrongful convictions occur. In the past, without surveillance cameras or DNA testing, many people become mistakes of the justice system and had their lives destroyed. An essay on capital punishment can argue that legislators should put a pause to executions at least until modern technology allows prosecutors to collect undeniable and 100% accurate evidence.
Are you writing a legal essay about the death penalty? The impact of modern technology on identifying crime evidence and solving criminal cases can provide many great arguments to use in your writing. With the advance of technological tools like DNA testing or surveillance cameras, it’s easier to trust the decisions of the justice system. However, capital punishment is still a controversial topic in many countries around the world.
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