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“You need to look at this from the other point of view.” That was my dad’s advice after I finished what I thought to be a stellar research paper in support of capital punishment.

I was all for capital punishment. Do the crime, do the time. Do a bad enough crime, pay the ultimate price. I bought into every cliché, and my 17-year-old mind was convinced I was right. Until my dad challenged me to look at the issue through another lens.

Long story short, he had me rewrite the paper arguing against capital punishment – which was incredibly revealing. How could there be jury bias in jud...