废除死刑的真正原因：无辜者被处决
作者保罗·格雷厄姆指出，关于死刑的学术争论（国家是否有权夺命、是否具有威慑力、是否存在种族偏见）回避了核心问题：实践中大量死刑判决涉及无辜者。据估算，死囚中至少有4%的人是无辜的。文章列举了多个真实案例，如肯尼斯·亚当斯等四人冤狱18年、基思·哈沃德冤狱33年、卡梅伦·威林厄姆已被处决后专家证词被推翻。作者认为，警察破案压力、检察官追求定罪、辩护律师失职、虚假证人及伪科学鉴定等制度性缺陷，导致误判普遍存在。无论理论如何，死刑在现实中意味着杀害无辜者。
When intellectuals talk about the death penalty, they talk about things like whether it's permissible for the state to take someone's life, whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent, and whether more death sentences are given to some groups than others. But in practice the debate about the death penalty is not about whether it's ok to kill murderers. It's about whether it's ok to kill innocent people, because at least 4% of people on death row are innocent.
当知识分子们讨论死刑时，他们谈论的是国家是否可以剥夺一个人的生命、死刑是否具有威慑力、以及某些群体是否更易被判死刑。但在实践中，关于死刑的辩论并非关于杀死凶手是否合适，而是关于杀死无辜者是否合适——因为死囚牢房中至少有4%的人是无辜的。
When I was a kid I imagined that it was unusual for people to be convicted of crimes they hadn't committed, and that in murder cases especially this must be very rare. Far from it. Now, thanks to organizations like the Innocence Project, we see a constant stream of stories about murder convictions being overturned after new evidence emerges. Sometimes the police and prosecutors were just very sloppy. Sometimes they were crooked, and knew full well they were convicting an innocent person.
小时候我以为，人们被冤枉定罪的情况很少见，尤其是在谋杀案中更是凤毛麟角。事实远非如此。如今，得益于 Innocence Project 等组织，我们不断看到谋杀定罪因新证据出现而被推翻的报道。有时，警察和检察官只是非常草率；有时，他们则是不道德的，明知自己在将一个无辜者定罪。
Kenneth Adams and three other men spent 18 years in prison on a murder conviction. They were exonerated after DNA testing implicated three different men, two of whom later confessed. The police had been told about the other men early in the investigation, but never followed up the lead.
Kenneth Adams 与其他三名男子因谋杀定罪在狱中度过了18年。DNA检测指向另外三名男子（其中两人后来认罪）后，他们被证明无罪。警方早在调查初期就被告知了这些人的存在，却从未跟进这条线索。
Keith Harward spent 33 years in prison on a murder conviction. He was convicted because "experts" said his teeth matched photos of bite marks on one victim. He was exonerated after DNA testing showed the murder had been committed by another man, Jerry Crotty.
Keith Harward 因谋杀定罪在狱中度过了33年。他被定罪是因为“专家”称他的牙齿与一名受害者身上咬痕照片相符。DNA检测显示凶手另有其人——Jerry Crotty——之后他才被证明无罪。
Ricky Jackson and two other men spent 39 years in prison after being convicted of murder on the testimony of a 12 year old boy, who later recanted and said he'd been coerced by police. Multiple people have confirmed the boy was elsewhere at the time. The three men were exonerated after the county prosecutor dropped the charges, saying "The state is conceding the obvious."
Ricky Jackson 与其他两名男子因一名12岁男孩的证词而被判谋杀罪，在狱中度过了39年。该男孩后来翻供，称自己受到警方胁迫。多人证实该男孩当时不在现场。地方检察官撤销指控后三人被无罪释放，并称“州政府承认显而易见的事实”。
Alfred Brown spent 12 years in prison on a murder conviction, including 10 years on death row. He was exonerated after it was discovered that the assistant district attorney had concealed phone records proving he could not have committed the crimes.
Alfred Brown 因谋杀定罪在狱中度过了12年，其中10年在死囚牢房。当发现助理检察官隐瞒了证明他不可能犯罪的通话记录后，他被证明无罪。
Glenn Ford spent 29 years on death row after having been convicted of murder. He was exonerated after new evidence proved he was not even at the scene when the murder occurred. The attorneys assigned to represent him had never tried a jury case before.
Glenn Ford 因谋杀定罪在死囚牢房度过了29年。新证据证明案发时他甚至不在现场，之后他被无罪释放。指派的辩护律师此前从未参与过陪审团审判。
Cameron Willingham was actually executed in 2004 by lethal injection. The "expert" who testified that he deliberately set fire to his house has since been discredited. A re-examination of the case ordered by the state of Texas in 2009 concluded that "a finding of arson could not be sustained."
Cameron Willingham 实际上已于2004年被注射处决。作证称他故意纵火烧毁自己房屋的“专家”后来被质疑。德克萨斯州于2009年下令重新审查此案，结论是“无法维持纵火认定”。
Rich Glossip has spent 20 years on death row after being convicted of murder on the testimony of the actual killer, who escaped with a life sentence in return for implicating him. In 2015 he came within minutes of execution before it emerged that Oklahoma had been planning to kill him with an illegal combination of drugs. They still plan to go ahead with the execution, perhaps as soon as this summer, despite new evidence exonerating him.
Rich Glossip 因真凶的证词被判谋杀罪，在死囚牢房度过了20年。真凶因指控他而获得终身监禁的减刑。2015年，他距执行仅剩几分钟时，被发现俄克拉荷马州计划用非法药物组合处决他。尽管有新的证据证明他无罪，该州仍计划继续执行死刑，可能就在今年夏天。
I could go on. There are hundreds of similar cases. In Florida alone, 29 death row prisoners have been exonerated so far.
Far from being rare, wrongful murder convictions are very common. Police are under pressure to solve a crime that has gotten a lot of attention. When they find a suspect, they want to believe he's guilty, and ignore or even destroy evidence suggesting otherwise. District attorneys want to be seen as effective and tough on crime, and in order to win convictions are willing to manipulate witnesses and withhold evidence. Court-appointed defense attorneys are overworked and often incompetent. There's a ready supply of criminals willing to give false testimony in return for a lighter sentence, suggestible witnesses who can be made to say whatever police want, and bogus "experts" eager to claim that science proves the defendant is guilty. And juries want to believe them, since otherwise some terrible crime remains unsolved.
我还可以继续列举。类似的案件有数百起。仅在佛罗里达州，迄今已有29名死囚被无罪释放。
错误谋杀定罪远非罕见，而是非常普遍。警方承受着破获备受关注案件的巨大压力。当他们找到嫌疑人时，他们倾向于相信其有罪，并忽视甚至销毁表明并非如此的证据。地区检察官希望被视为高效且对犯罪严厉，为了赢得定罪，他们愿意操纵证人并隐瞒证据。法院指定的辩护律师工作过度且常常无能。有大量罪犯愿意提供虚假证词以换取减刑，易受暗示的证人可以被诱导说出警方想听的话，以及冒牌“专家”急于声称科学证明被告有罪。而陪审团愿意相信他们，否则一些可怕的罪行将永远无法破解。
This circus of incompetence and dishonesty is the real issue with the death penalty. We don't even reach the point where theoretical questions about the moral justification or effectiveness of capital punishment start to matter, because so many of the people sentenced to death are actually innocent. Whatever it means in theory, in practice capital punishment means killing innocent people.
Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Don Knight for reading drafts of this.
这种无能和不诚实的闹剧才是死刑的真正问题。我们甚至还没有触及关于死刑道德正当性或有效性的理论问题，因为如此多的被判处死刑者实际上是无辜的。无论理论上意味着什么，在实践中，死刑就意味着杀死无辜者。
感谢 Trevor Blackwell、Jessica Livingston 和 Don Knight 审阅本文初稿。