The death penalty: On whose hands is the blood of the innocent?

By Lucy Peace Nantume

On March 25, as Christians worldwide commemorated the most important event in Christianity - The death of Jesus Christ, some families were grieving for their relatives who were executed on the same day.

In Japan Yasutoshi Kamata (a 75 year old) and Ms. Junko Yoshida (whose request for a retrial was rejected) were executed. Although I have not read all the details about their cases, as I attended the way of the cross and passion of Christ service, I thought about these two cases as well as those who have previously faced the death penalty and those currently facing it in the 92 out of 195 Independent states that have not yet fully abolished the death penalty. (So far 103 countries including 18 in Africa have fully abolished, six have abolished for ordinary crimes, 50 have abolished in practice i.e. not executed persons for over 10 years including Uganda while 36 are executing).

An important event in the run up to Jesus' crucifixion particularly stood out for me; Jesus' betrayal by Judas as written in all gospels (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and John 18) at a price of 30 silver pieces. It is possible that for Judas this was a money making scheme with the expectation that Jesus whom he had seen performing miracles including raising the dead would find a way of escaping because when he found out that Jesus had been condemned, he took the thirty silver pieces back to the chief priests and confessed to betraying innocent blood. This however could not reverse the events. Judas ended up hanging himself and the chief priests knowing that it was blood money that could not even be put it into the treasury for worthy causes, used it to buy a graveyard for foreigners.

Jesus Christ an innocent man thus faced what in modern day would have been the hangman's rope, firing squad, lethal injection or any other mode of execution for those found deserving of the death penalty, because of a close friend's wrongful act.  Although it is true that many of those sentenced to death are guilty of the crimes for which they are condemned, it is also an undisputed fact that some are condemned unjustly leading to innocent persons being put to death. This is because of various reasons including; poor investigations, prosecutorial misconduct and lack of effective legal representation. This explains why it is usually the poor who end up at the gallows. In America alone, the use of DNA evidence on the already condemned prisoners has so far led to the exoneration of 337 people who had been wrongfully condemned to suffer death. Back home in Uganda, we have testimonies of former death row inmates like Patrick Zizinga condemned for the murder of his wife who was later found alive leading to his release.

On whose hands is the blood of the innocent already executed and those among the 208 currently on death row in Uganda? Is it the witnesses who give false witness, the police that do poor investigations, the advocates who offer poor legal representation, the judge who hands down the sentence, the public whose opinions influence some case outcomes, the public who sits in watch and do nothing, the President who signs the death e warrant, the executioners? On whose hands?

 The writer is a human rights lawyer