NEW VOICES: Federal Judge Discusses His Concerns About the Death Penalty

In an inter­view with The New York Times, Judge Jed S. Rakoff (pic­tured) dis­cussed his rea­sons for find­ing the fed­er­al death penal­ty to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Judge Rakoff ruled in April 2002 that the death penal­ty failed to secure due process because of the demon­strat­ed risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. He not­ed that his con­clu­sions on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment were based in part on his exten­sive review of cas­es includ­ed on the Death Penalty Information Center’s inno­cence list. He remarked that the exon­er­a­tions exposed ​“some­thing pret­ty upset­ting, if you think about its broad­er ramifications.…that our legal sys­tem is not as good in ascer­tain­ing the truth as we thought it was.” Rakoff also revealed his per­son­al appre­ci­a­tion for the needs of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers. In 1985, his broth­er, Jan, was mur­dered in the Philippines, a crime that left an ​“unheal­able wound.” Though his 2002 deci­sion was over­turned, Rakoff main­tains his con­cerns about the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem: ​“I con­tin­ue to think that the process is deeply flawed. It posits a very high like­li­hood that no inno­cent per­son is con­vict­ed, which I no longer believe to be true.” (The New York Times, January 2, 2005). See Victims, DPIC’s page on U.S. v. Quinones, and Innocence.