In the Austin American statesman Helene Burns talks about the Death Penalty. Ms. Burns is a local contributor with a background to support her stand, she is a registered nurse, wife, mother, and a survivor of a murdered mother. Burns, once a advocate of death penalty took time to educate herself after the deputy district attorney advised that pursuing death penalty would make it harder for the family and takes years of appeals. Life sentence would be faster and would lead to a swifter recovery.
Burns continues to say that their are many death penalties that are carried out due to mistakes. When a death penalty is carried out wrongfully, you can't just bring them back. Also carrying out a death sentence would not bring back your loves ones or reverse the harm they have inflicted.
I believe Burns communicates to those that believe the death penalty is wrong and reassures them with her life story, tragic history and experience. Her logic is compelling in her situation and death sentence to her father might have caused more pain than closure.
In her closing statement Burns points to Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois that has recently abolish the death penalty, thus freeing up millions of dollars to use productively. Funding for more police, investigators for cold cases, or corrections and victims unit. I agree with Ms. Burns and believe she is more than qualified to talk about this topic however I believe her argument is flawed in a few ways.
One thing Burns did not talk about was the mistakes that lead guilty felons to be not guilty. In a less than 100% perfect justice system, guilty felons also shouldn't be able to be freed due to mistakes. Also I believe her opinion is more based on her tragedy, however I believe there are many people out there that wouldn't mind the years of appeals, the prolonging of a case to watch a guilty felon endure the death sentence.
