Virginia senator pushes to abolish the death penalty

Brut America

"The problem with capital punishment is that once it's inflicted you can't take it back."  In a push to abolish the death penalty, here's what Virginia Senator Scott Surovell had to say.

Transcript

00:00I cannot think of anything that's more awful, unspeakable, and wrong for a government to do

00:08than to use its power to execute somebody who didn't commit the crime they're accused of.

00:13The problem with capital punishment is that once it's inflicted you can't take it back,

00:16can't be corrected.

00:17Since our colony was founded, 1,389 people have been executed by our government in this state,

00:41more than any other governmental entity in the United States of America.

00:45I believe it's estimated that for about every 10 death sentences that are rendered,

00:49one innocent person is convicted.

00:52And I'll just give you chills to think of the

00:57thousands of people in America who've been executed, how many of them were actually

01:01innocent.

01:02There is an indisputable connection between the death penalty and racial oppression,

01:08and that is impossible to deny.

01:12All you got to do is look at the statistics.

01:15You're much more likely to receive a death sentence if you kill somebody who's white,

01:20and you're not.

01:22You're much more likely to get it if you're poor, if you're mentally disabled.

01:30You're much more likely to get it if you have a diminished IQ.

01:34You're much more likely to get it if you have a brain injury.

01:37This is, you know, the folks who end up commit murders often have different sorts of problems.

01:44Those problems put them in certain economic circumstances,

01:47and those things collectively often result in people

01:50getting a sentence that if they were, if they had the resources to defend themselves,

01:55they probably wouldn't get the death penalty.

01:57We ought to look at who we stand with today.

02:01Ask yourself, what other countries are still doing this?

02:06There's not a single other Western industrialized nation that's doing it.

02:10The country that leads the world, as far as we know, in executions is China,

02:16but we don't really know how many.

02:17We just know they do a lot, over a thousand.

02:20Next in line comes Iran.

02:22After that is Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, and then the USA.

02:28Right after us is Pakistan, and right on Pakistan's heels is Somalia.

02:33And if we'd had this discussion, you know, seven, eight years ago,

02:39we'd be standing there strong with ISIS.

02:41When we think of America as being the beacon of hope and freedom that it is,

02:46and we ask other countries in the world to look at how we adjudicate our people,

02:50and we look at how we treat other people in our society,

02:55this is not something to be proud of.

02:57This system we have has just become completely untenable.

03:01It just doesn't work anymore, and it's time to move on.

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