The Favor of Elected Officials (Revised)

Bonner, Raymond. "The Last Line of Defense." The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group, March 2012. Web. 15 October 2012.

In “The Last Line of Defense”, Raymond Bonner discusses the death penalty and uses Diana Holt’s experiences as an attorney to show the affects that have come from the death penalty in her own cases. Holt states that her opinion on the death penalty is, “Despite all legal safeguards, whether one gets death or not is dependent on geography, the elected official with the power to seek it, the color of his skin, gender, the color of the victim’s skin, the victim’s gender, wealth of any of those, poverty of the defendant, mental health of any of those, and judges with agendas.” Holt comes to this conclusion after she was the defense attorney in a case where the death penalty was used against an innocent man. Bonner explains the case of Richard Johnson and how even though Holt found evidence that declared Johnson innocent, a new trial would not be conducted because that is not how the criminal justice system works. This case is what ultimately developed Holt’s opinion that indeed capital punishment is in favor of geography and the elected officials behind the case.

From reading cases like Richard Johnson’s it makes it evident to society that false cases occur all the time and anyone from the attorney, defendant or judge do not always realize. Just from Bonner's example of Holt's experience, it is evident that the criminal justice system did not care even if she did have such valuable evidence to back up the innocent man. Since they did not turn back on Holt's case, he would have to suffer and still receive the death penalty no matter what. There certainly have been times when the death penalty was used for instances that were a 100 percent true and it was the correct punishment, but there are more instances when execution is not the best option. These elected officials hold too much power to be making false decisions. Society as a whole needs to stay educated about these officials that are elected to make such crucial decisions about capital punishment. We need to keep the honest officials in office and the ones that base their decisions on the geography of the case out.