District attor­neys from sev­er­al Massachusetts coun­ties, includ­ing Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex, Essex and Barnstable, had strong reser­va­tions about Governor Mitt Romney’s attempt to estab­lish a near­ly ​“fool­proof” death penal­ty sys­tem in the state. Some not­ed that noth­ing can elim­i­nate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of human error in such cas­es. The dis­trict attor­neys said that the state’s med­ical examiner’s office and crime labs are cur­rent­ly over­whelmed with work, and that the labs do not have the capac­i­ty to add the addi­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty of car­ry­ing out Romney’s plan. ​“Let’s fix what’s wrong first,” said Barnstable District Attorney Michael O’Keefe. ​“We’re sig­nif­i­cant­ly behind in the Commonwealth in the deliv­ery of foren­sic ser­vices, rel­a­tive to oth­er juris­dic­tions.”

The plan was cre­at­ed by an 11-mem­ber death penal­ty com­mis­sion appoint­ed by Romney, and the com­mis­sion mem­bers note that their rec­om­men­da­tions will come with a hefty price-tag. Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating esti­mates that using the stan­dards would cost Massachusetts tax­pay­ers at least $5 mil­lion per death penal­ty case, near­ly as much as his entire $6.8 mil­lion annu­al bud­get that funds approx­i­mate­ly 19,000 crim­i­nal com­plaints a year. Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said the release of four wrong­ly con­vict­ed or indict­ed Massachusetts inmates since he took his job in 2002 ​“has sim­ply con­vinced me that while tech­nol­o­gy like DNA is crit­i­cal in deter­min­ing one’s guilt or inno­cence, the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice is a human endeav­or, and we’re all fal­li­ble.” (Boston Globe, May 4, 2004) See Innocence. Also Read the Commission Report.

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