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Innocent people are not only executed in Hollywood Westerns but in the real world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution#United_Stat...

This fact alone makes capital punishment an atrocity.

Here is a recent example of how easy it is to get convicted while innocent (non-capital in this case, but highly illuminating):

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10239429/Innocent-m...

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Illinois had to instate a moratorium because of their track record of convicting innocence people to death. A conservative estimate is 50 innocent people have been executed in the US in modern times, and over 200 on death row are also innocent. Also, consider the harsh sentences of mandatory minimums for petty drug crimes where there's now an elderly warehousing problem where harmless people lost their lives but are too frail to care for themselves. Furthermore, America has the highest incarceration rate in the world overrepresented by mostly brown and poor people. Rich white people use drugs at similar rates but don't go to jail for it.

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