Many Americans feel that the use of the death penalty of the mentally ill is unfavorable. The Public Policy Research (PPR) conducted a nationwide poll of registered voters on their thoughts on the use of the death penalty on the mentally ill in November 2014. The poll found that Americans did not favor using the death penalty on mentally ill individuals by a 2-to-1 margin. Opposition to the execution of people with mental illness ran across lines of race, gender, political affiliation, and education. Sixty-two percent of Democrats, 59% of Republicans and 51% of Independents all opposed the practice (DPIC). .
Our right as Americans is to be granted a fair trial to determine whether or not we have committed a crime, and are considered to be innocent before proven guilty. However, it is a known fact that lawyers are outrageously expensive, and the best lawyers cannot be afforded by many Americans. Therefore, an ineffective assistance of counsel can occur for a vast number of the accused, leaving many to face a death sentence. A study at Columbia University found that 68% of all death penalty cases were reversed on appeal, with inadequate defense as one of the main reasons requiring reversal (. In other words, innocent lives could have been ended as a result of a poor defense attorney. Which leads me to my next point: Innocent lives are put at risk with the use of the death penalty. Over the years our technology has improved, and with the reinstatement of the death penalty, it has been found that many on death row are in fact innocent. Furthermore, it is now being suggested that inmates previously put to death were most likely innocent. This unsettling truth can be attributed to discriminatory views by juries, or even a court's pressure by the public to solve a crime and punish an offender. For example, in 1945 an African-American woman living in Georgia named Lena Baker was accused of murdering her employer, a white man named Ernest Knight.
