Difference Between a Report and a Position Paper

In grading the position papers, I have noticed that there is some confusion about the difference between a report and an argument or position paper. Using the death penalty in Florida as a topic, I will write a few paragraphs in the form of a report and then a few paragraphs in the form of a position paper to illustrate the difference.

Report

Although Texas leads the nation in the number of people executed, Florida leads the nation in the number of people sentenced to death (Smith 27). There are several reasons for this fact. The first reason is Florida’s requirement that juries be “death qualified,” meaning that every person sitting on a jury hearing a first-degree murder trial must be willing to vote for the death penalty in at least some circumstances. The result of this rule is that people opposing the death penalty are excluded from juries. Since women, minorities, and Catholics are more likely to oppose the death penalty, juries in Florida are often top-heavy with white, Protestant males.

Another factor leading to a greater number of people on Florida’s death row is the requirements for opposing the death penalty may lead to juries that are more prone to convict a defendant. Much research (Jones 42) shows that people who support the death penalty are more likely to convict defendants. Often, death penalty supporters are more concerned about letting a guilty person go free than they are about wrongly convicting an innocent person (Lee and Burke, 39).

Such jurors may be especially unconcerned about convicting the innocent if the defendant is a member of a minority group. One study of attitudes toward the death penalty (Davidowicz 159) has shown that strong proponents of the death penalty are far more likely to hold negative and even racist views of African Americans than are opponents of the death penalty.

Argument

While Texas executes more prisoners, Florida sentences more prisoners to death. The reasons for this high number of death sentences are complex but include the way in which juries are selected.  Another reason is the low requirements that must be met when imposing the death penalty. If Florida wants to continue using the death penalty, the state must reform the rules regulating the death penalty because they increase the chance of wrongful conviction, especially of minority defendants.[THIS IS THE THESIS. NOTE THAT THE REPORT DID NOT HAVE A THESIS.]

The first rule that needs to be reformed Is the one requiring juries hearing capital cases to be “death qualified.” This phrase means that all jurors serving on the jury must be willing to vote for the death penalty in at least some cases.  This rule has three effects that lessen the protection the justice system should afford to the defendants. First, research has found that such juries are more conviction prone (Smith 57). In other words, these juries are more likely to find a defendant guilty than are juries composed at least partially of people opposing the death penalty.  Such jurors are more concerned about letting the guilty go unpunished than they are about possibly convicting an innocent man (Lee 33).  Other research demonstrates that death penalty supporters are more likely to hold racist views of minorities than are death penalty opponents. Furthermore, since those opposing the death penalty are more likely to be members of minority groups, women, and Catholics, the death qualification requirement means that a defendant is less likely to have a jury representing a broad cross-section of the society that is deciding his fate.

The second requirement that needs to be altered is the limited time-frame for appeals. To hasten the application of the death penalty, Governor Rick Scott signed a bill providing only a shorter time for appeals and requiring that attorneys representing death row inmates keep the government informed of their activities on the prisoner’s behalf.  Limiting the time between trial and execution means that defendants will have less time to prove their innocence. This concern is not a hypothetical one: since 1973, twenty-four death row inmates have been exonerated and freed. A shorter time frame could increase the risk of executing an innocent person.  Requiring regular reports from inmates’ attorneys adds an extra burden on lawyers who may be either working pro-bono or for organizations that are woefully understaffed and underfunded (Burke 12). Since their legal activities are part of public record in any case, the reporting requirement seems more like an attempt at harassment than a genuine attempt to monitor legal processes.

                An examination of the research on the death penalty shows that Florida’s rules increase the chances of an inmate’s being sentenced to death. These rules increase both the chances of a defendant’s being convicted and the possibility of racial bias being a factor in the sentencing. As if those results were not bad enough, other rules hinder a defendant’s chances of overturning the sentence on appeal. In deciding whether or not to change Florida’s death penalty rules, it is important to remember the twenty-four men who were sentenced to death and later found innocent. Are we as a society really so eager to execute the guilty  that we are willing to risk executing the innocent as well?