On May 7, the Constitution Project released a new report, Irreversible Error, call­ing for reforms in many aspects of the death penal­ty sys­tem. The Project’s Death Penalty Committee, which con­sists of renowned experts on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, made sug­ges­tions for reduc­ing the risk of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent and improv­ing the fair­ness of cap­i­tal cas­es from arrest and inter­ro­ga­tion, through pros­e­cu­tion and appeals, to the exe­cu­tion pro­ce­dure itself. ​“Without sub­stan­tial revi­sions — not only to lethal injec­tion, but across the board — the admin­is­tra­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in America is unjust, dis­pro­por­tion­ate and very like­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al,” said com­mit­tee mem­ber Mark Earley, a Republican and for­mer Attorney General of Virginia. Among the 39 rec­om­men­da­tions in the report were increased access and improved stan­dards for foren­sic test­ing, video­tap­ing of inter­ro­ga­tions in homi­cide inves­ti­ga­tions, and exemp­tions for the severe­ly men­tal­ly ill. In cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing, the report rec­om­mend­ed requir­ing a unan­i­mous jury vote for death before a death sen­tence could be imposed. Virginia Sloan, President of the Constitution Project, said, ​“Some of the mem­bers of the Committee believe that the range of pun­ish­ments may include death; oth­ers do not. But they all agree that no one should be denied basic con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions, includ­ing a com­pe­tent lawyer, a fair tri­al and full judi­cial review of any con­vic­tion and sen­tence. The denial of such pro­tec­tions height­ens the dan­ger of wrong­ful con­vic­tion and sentencing.”

(“Irreversible Error,” Constitution Project, May 7, 2014). See Studies and Innocence. See pre­vi­ous reports on the death penal­ty from the Constitution Project.

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