A recent arti­cle in the Justice Quarterly by Professor James Acker (pic­tured) and Rose Bellandi of the University at Albany, New York, exam­ined whether there is an irrec­on­cil­able con­flict between recent reforms to pre­vent the exe­cu­tion of the inno­cent and the tra­di­tion­al goals of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The authors stud­ied recent changes to Maryland’s death penal­ty statute that were designed to reduce the risk of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions while try­ing to main­tain the death penal­ty for the most heinous crimes. Maryland’s law requires either bio­log­i­cal evi­dence of guilt, a video­taped con­fes­sion, or a video con­clu­sive­ly link­ing the defen­dant to a mur­der as a pre­req­ui­site to seek­ing a death sen­tence. The authors con­clud­ed that such a statute will not impose the death penal­ty on the worst offend­ers, but only on those whose cas­es con­tain cer­tain evi­dence of guilt: ​“No one sup­ports exe­cut­ing the inno­cent. Yet, many sup­port exe­cut­ing those who are guilty of heinous crimes. How to guard against the for­mer risk while advanc­ing the lat­ter objec­tive evokes spe­cial chal­lenges, if not para­dox­es of suf­fi­cient mag­ni­tude that sug­gest that the twin goals defy rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.” Acker and Bellandi fur­ther add that even these pro­tec­tions will not be infal­li­ble, and that the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment rec­om­mend­ed abo­li­tion of the death penalty.

(J. Acker and R. Bellandi, ​“Firmament or Folly? Protecting the Innocent, Promoting Capital Punishment, and the Paradoxes of Reconciliation,” 29 Justice Quarterly 287 (April 2012); DPIC post­ed June 4, 2012). See Innocence. Read more Articles on the death penal­ty. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Arbitrariness.

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