Editorials in papers around the coun­try have not­ed that many Americans are rethink­ing the death penal­ty because it is deeply flawed. Among the recent edi­to­r­i­al obser­va­tions were the fol­low­ing:

New Jersey’s Star-Ledger

Fewer peo­ple are being giv­en the death penal­ty in the United States, accord­ing to the Justice Department, which says such sen­tences are at a 30-year low. Last year, the num­ber of peo­ple who were sen­tenced to die totaled 144.

While these num­bers are heart­en­ing in that they reflect a decrease in exe­cu­tions, they ought to cause states to rethink the wis­dom and fair­ness of the death penal­ty alto­geth­er.
…
Getting sen­tenced to death has become just what the U.S. Supreme Court, in its land­mark 1972 Furman vs. Georgia rul­ing, said it should not be — a pun­ish­ment so ​“wan­ton­ly and so freak­ish­ly imposed” that it is like get­ting struck by light­en­ing.
…
Whatever one’s moral views on the death penal­ty, there are com­pelling rea­sons to con­sid­er get­ting rid of it.

Cost is one. It takes from $2.3 mil­lion to $3.2 mil­lion to bring a death pros­e­cu­tion in New Jersey.

Human error is anoth­er rea­son. In recent years, more than 100 death-row inmates nation­wide have been exon­er­at­ed, most­ly using DNA evi­dence.

The ques­tion is whether any­body is will­ing to kill this bad­ly bro­ken sys­tem. (Star Ledger Editorial, November 20, 2004).

Florida’s Daytona Beach News-Journal

Over the past 10 years, Americans have been forced to face real­i­ty: Death penal­ty laws are deeply flawed.

More than 100 death row inhab­i­tants have been freed after their con­vic­tions were over­turned, many of them exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence that con­clu­sive­ly proves their inno­cence. Years, some­times decades, pass between con­vic­tion and exe­cu­tion. And exe­cu­tions grue­some­ly botched have many recoil­ing in hor­ror.
…
Why are Americans turn­ing away from this ves­tige of fron­tier jus­tice? One pos­si­ble expla­na­tion is the grow­ing inter­na­tion­al pres­sure on the United States as the last indus­tri­al­ized nation to so enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly apply the death penal­ty. But a more like­ly the­o­ry hits clos­er to home. The con­tin­u­ing spate of sto­ries about inequities in the way the death penal­ty in admin­is­tered has forced many to con­sid­er whether the notion of ret­ribu­tive jus­tice is itself fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed.

The myth that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is a deter­rent has been explod­ed. Death penal­ty pro­po­nents argue that over the past 10 years, the num­ber of exe­cu­tions increased while mur­der rates have decreased. But that’s true in states that don’t have the death penal­ty — and on aver­age, their mur­der rates are drop­ping faster than they are in the states that still exe­cute, the Death Penalty Information Center reports.

The oth­er like­ly con­tributer is the num­ber of death sen­tences over­turned, a sta­tis­tic that throws the per­ma­nent, irrev­o­ca­ble nature of the death penal­ty into sharp focus. As DNA evi­dence has freed increas­ing num­bers of inmates, the num­ber of Americans who say they favor the death penal­ty has remained fair­ly sta­ble — but the num­ber of Americans who say they oppose the death penal­ty has steadi­ly increased. While 60 to 70% of Americans say they approve of the death penal­ty, the num­ber drops to about half when they are asked to choose between death and life in prison with­out parole.

This grow­ing uneasi­ness about the death penal­ty is already bear­ing fruit. Last month, President Bush signed the Justice For All Act, which (among oth­er things) pro­vides more hope to inmates await­ing DNA tests that could prove their inno­cence. The act does not go far enough — it lim­its access to oth­er sci­en­tif­ic tests, for exam­ple — but it will pro­vide $25 mil­lion to states over the next five years to con­duct post-con­vic­tion DNA tests.

Yet too many death penal­ty inmates are still tried, con­vict­ed and sen­tenced in states that deny them ade­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Without a com­pe­tent lawyer at tri­al, the accused lose much of their abil­i­ty to appeal wrong­ful con­vic­tions.
…
A bet­ter solu­tion — the right solu­tion — is to rec­og­nize the death penal­ty for what it is — inef­fi­cient, inef­fec­tive, expen­sive, slow, unjust and moral­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble — and abol­ish it now, rather than wait for it to with­er away. (Daytona Beach News-Journal Editorial, November 17, 2004).

Colorado’s Denver Post

It’s prob­a­bly too ear­ly to call it a rad­i­cal change, but there’s a flick­er of hope that American soci­ety is com­ing to think of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a cru­el anachronism.…[A] new report has found that the num­ber of death ver­dicts hit a 27-year low last year. Possible fac­tors include the exon­er­a­tion of about 100 death-row inmates and the fact that jurors now have the option of impos­ing life with­out parole in 47 states.
…
Despite sup­port in pub­lic-opin­ion sur­veys, jurors seem less enthu­si­as­tic about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“I’m not sur­prised at the reluc­tance on the part of American juries to impose the death penal­ty,” said U.S. District Judge John Kane, who spec­u­lat­ed that some death-penal­ty jurors may hes­i­tate because of news reports and tele­vi­sion shows about errors in death-penal­ty cas­es.
…
Over time, the Supreme Court has nar­rowed appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty, ban­ning exe­cu­tion of the men­tal­ly retard­ed, for exam­ple. Early this year, the court agreed to re-exam­ine exe­cu­tion of defen­dants who were juve­niles when their crimes were com­mit­ted.

The Post has opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment since 1965. Perhaps grow­ing antipa­thy for actu­al­ly impos­ing the death penal­ty will some­day lead the court to con­clude that it has tru­ly become a ​“cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment” and ban it alto­geth­er. (Denver Post Editorial, November 21, 2004).

See Editorials. See also Innocence, Costs, Deterrence, and Representation.

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