An edi­to­r­i­al in the Salt Lake Tribune recent­ly called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, stat­ing that ​“the legal, moral and prac­ti­cal argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have evolved from sound to unas­sail­able” since the pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed over 30 years ago. The edi­to­r­i­al points to the fal­li­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem as a major con­cern, cit­ing the Death Penalty Information Center​’s report that nine inmates have been exon­er­at­ed and released from death row in 2009 alone. The arbi­trary nature of the death penal­ty sys­tem that places racial minori­ties and the poor at a greater dis­ad­van­tage, as well as the cost of apply­ing the death penal­ty com­pared to its alter­na­tives, were also of con­cern. Read the full text below.

Denial of death
 Time to end capital punishment

In the 33 years since the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty, and con­vict­ed Utah killer Gary Gilmore’s exe­cu­tion became the first of 1,188 to fol­low, the legal, moral and prac­ti­cal argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have evolved from sound to unassailable.

And one by one, the states are hav­ing sec­ond thoughts. So far, 15 have dropped the death penal­ty and 10 oth­ers have looked at doing so. The real­iza­tion that our sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is crip­pling­ly fal­li­ble and inher­ent­ly unfair has been spurred by a grow­ing num­ber of cas­es in which new evi­dence based on DNA test­ing or oth­er advances in foren­sic sci­ence has proven that police, pros­e­cu­tors and the jury got it wrong.

Indeed, the Death Penalty Information Center puts at 129 the num­ber of inmates since Gilmore who have been released from death row based on new evi­dence, includ­ing nine this year who were freed after serv­ing a com­bined 121 years before they were exonerated.

The release from prison last week of Donald E. Gates, who served 27 years of a life sen­tence for a mur­der that DNA evi­dence proved anoth­er man had com­mit­ted, under­scores the error or caprice that, in cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es, can claim anoth­er innocent victim.

Before Gilmore was shot by a fir­ing squad of anony­mous rifle­men on Jan. 17, 1977, end­ing a decade-long mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty imposed by the Supreme Court, cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment had already been shown to be uneven­ly applied. Racial minori­ties and the poor were much more like­ly to face exe­cu­tion than whites from the mid­dle or upper class­es. And cas­es where the con­demned was lat­er shown to be inno­cent, either before or after exe­cu­tion, were not uncom­mon even then. Eight were exon­er­at­ed from 1973 to 1976.

But fair­ness and fal­li­bil­i­ty did not prove suf­fi­cient cause for the courts to reject exe­cu­tion as legal­ly inde­fen­si­ble, and the death penal­ty pros­pered. The num­ber of death sen­tences rose to an annu­al high of 328 in 1994. But that rate has fall­en by 63 per­cent since then, to 106 new cas­es in 2009, the low­est num­ber since the death penal­ty was restored in 1976.

The high-pro­file impact of exon­er­a­tions is not the only fac­tor in the cur­rent sev­en-year decline in cas­es in which con­vict­ed crim­i­nals are sent to death row. With state bud­gets crash­ing, the sheer cost of apply­ing the death penal­ty com­pared to life in prison is another.

Our sys­tem of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, which 48 of 50 European nations have out­lawed, is bro­ken and can­not be fixed. Life in prison with­out parole, arguably worse than death, should be the limit.

(Tribune Editorial, ​“Denial of death,” Salt Lake Tribune, December 21, 2009). Read oth­er Editorials here. See also Innocence and Race.

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