Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney recent­ly tes­ti­fied that the pro­posed ​“fool­proof” death penal­ty statute he hopes will bring cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment back to the state does not elim­i­nate the pos­si­bil­i­ty that an inno­cent per­son could be exe­cut­ed. Romney acknowl­edged to mem­bers of the joint House and Senate Judiciary Committee that the pro­posed law can­not pro­tect the state against the poten­tial for human error, stat­ing, ​“A 100 per­cent guar­an­tee? I don’t think there’s such a thing in life. Except per­haps death — for all of us.”

Representative Michael A. Costellow, one of the law­mak­ers who ques­tioned Romney dur­ing the hear­ing, said that the Governor’s admis­sion ​“does knock out the ini­tial premise” that the plan is fool­proof, adding, ​“I think they put the best and the bright­est togeth­er to try to come up with a fool­proof pol­i­cy, and it isn’t foolproof.” 

Massachusetts is one of 12 states that does not have the death penal­ty. The last exe­cu­tion in the state was in 1947. (Boston Globe, July 14, 2005). Almost all of the tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed at the hear­ing opposed the gov­er­nor’s bill. Romney’s response to many of the crit­i­cisms of the pro­posed law was that the threat of exe­cu­tion would at least lead to more plea bar­gains to life sen­tences. Some object­ed that it might also lead to inno­cent peo­ple plead­ing guilty to avoid the death penal­ty. Read tes­ti­mo­ny giv­en by DPIC’s Executive Director, Richard Dieter, dur­ing the Massachusetts hear­ing. See also Innocence.

Citation Guide