“Ending the American Tragedy”

With the recent decision by the Catholic Church to launch a nation-wide campaign to abolish the death penalty in the United States , those also committed to it’s abolishment find themselves in a pinnacle position and have the ability to make tremendous contributions to these efforts.

1. Support groups like  the “innocence project”. This group is not only rescueing innocent people from being wrongfully executed but as they do so they strengthen the argument for abolition with proof.
2. Support publications like “Justice Denied and Prison Legal News” which assist prisoners wrongfully convicted and monitors the situation.
3. Support legislation which serves to increase the financial compensation of citizens wrongfully convicted, especially those sentenced to death and make judges and prosecutors liable. Doing this puts in place a measure to prevent overzealous judges and prosecutors from prosecuting citizens they “know” are either completely innocent or not guilty of the crimes they are being prosecuted for.
4. Support legislation which calls for mandatory DNA testing of death row prisoners in DBA related cases. While State government will ardently challenge this based on the “cost argument”, the truth is it’s cheaper to than keeping someone in a cage for 20 years, and they don’t wish this because it will truly expose the number of innocent people on death row across the country.
5. Now more then ever does the fire of social debate need to be stoked to bring this issue to the forefront and force American society to face the truth that the system of death penalty in the U.S. is broken and flawed to it’s very core.

The evidence is overwhelming and continues to build up as more and more innocent citizens are exonerated and freed yet there is an area of this issue which is greatly overlooked. And that is the enormous number of citizens prosecuted and convicted / sentenced to death for crimes which never warranted the death penalty in the first place yet overzealous and politically motivated state attorneys sought to use these citizens lives as stepping stones to climb the political ladder. The evidence that poor and minorities are more often sentenced to death is a clear indicator that the death penalty is not blindly pursued in the interest of justice but instead is arbitrarily applied to a certain segment of American society. These defendants often have their death sentence commuted by the higher courts because they never warranted the death penalty yet their convictions remain, as they do for the rest of their lives in the prison system.

The hard simple truth is there is something terribly wrong in American society today and the cure to these ailments is to treat the disease and not the symptoms of that disease if the disease is to be cured. When children are going to school and committing mass murder and suicide, when police officers are raping women, when 2 million people must be imprisoned in this country, when children are being starved, kept in cages and raped by foster families, when sexual predators roam the cities and neighbourhoods of this country; something is wrong! Throwing people in prison and executing people has not resolved the problem because these things continue to go on every day and the question must be asked, “When will people stop and look around them to see that the cure to America’s social ills is not the executioner or a prison cage but the conscious choice to change the self-destructive direction American society is headed.”

When will the American tragedy end? I am not advocating that the door of America ’s prisons be sprung open, certainly not, There are individuals within the prison system that sadly are tremendously sick and need tremendous care if they are ever going to get well but therein lies another tremendous problem.

America ’s prisons have become a cost-efficient way to deal with mentally ill citizens. There are prison camps in the state of Florida where 50% of the prisoners are on some type of medication for mental illness.

I used the term earlier American tragedy because it truly is one.

While it is often frowned upon to have sympathy for a prisoner the truth is when a terrible crime happens or someone is sent off to die a slow death in a cage on death row or in population (prison); it is a sad day for all of American society because it has lost someone to the American tragedy. The victim and their family, the prisoner and his family; everyone suffers.

If America is to bring an end to the American tragedy it must not only make conscious choices about it’s future but also how to help heal those wounded during this tragic period as well.

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision concerning the banning of the death penalty for minors has spared me of the executioners company and needle but after spending almost 14 years on Florida’s death row I leave knowing that there are men here who are completely innocent and others who have made tragic mistakes with their lives but are no monsters and I can only hope and pray that they too will be spared the machine of death .

To all those committed to the abolition of the death penalty and it’s cause, I ask you to raise your voices even louder and patiently persevere because for so many; you are their hope.

To Death Row Speaks and other like groups, thank you for the things you have done and continue to do. May you be blessed all your lives and in all you do.

Sincerely,

Nabiyl Musaaleh

Webmaster note: Nabiyl was one of the first inmates to submit a profile for our state death row section. Because of the U.S. Supreme Courts decision to abolish the death penalty for juveniles and those who committed their crimes while being juveniles Nabiyl's death sentence was lifted but he was still housed at Florida's death row while writing this. His profile is no longer on Death Row Speaks though. Therefore this essay is placed under the visitors and team member writings section. We wish Nabiyl all the best in his future.