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Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/Another problem which cannot be avoided by the proponents of the death penalty is that of the finality and irreversibility of the punishment. No matter how carefully the evidence is sifted, and how sure the jurors are that they are convicting the right person, it is by no means certain that a defendant is in fact always guilty. Many people have been sentenced to death on the strength of circumstantial evidence rather than factual, and as long as capital punishment exists, innocent people will be executed. It is worth noting that capital punishment existed at the time of the conviction of the six people in Birmingham and four from Guildford - Irishmen whom it was felt had been proved to be savage terrorists - ten totally innocent men would all have been hanged. As it was, both groups spent 16 years in jail, but at least they remained alive so that the chance continued for their innocence to be proved.