In an edi­to­r­i­al in its Sunday, November 6 edi­tion, the Birminham News announced that ​“After decades of sup­port­ing the death penal­ty, the edi­to­r­i­al board no longer can do so.” The paper cit­ed both prac­ti­cal and eth­i­cal rea­sons for the change in its stance: “[W]e have come to believe Alabama’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem is bro­ken. And because, first and fore­most, this news­pa­per’s edi­to­r­i­al board is com­mit­ted to a cul­ture of life.… We believe all life is sacred. And in embrac­ing a cul­ture of life, we can­not make dis­tinc­tions between those we deem ​‘inno­cents’ and those flawed humans who pop­u­late Death Row.“

The paper plans to expound on the basis for its call to end the death penal­ty over the next five days. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed the num­ber of inno­cent peo­ple freed from death row in Alabama and around the coun­try, and also called atten­tion to the prob­lem of arbi­trari­ness in death sentencing:

At the heart of what has hap­pened in Illinois and else­where — includ­ing Alabama — are dis­turb­ing ques­tions about the fal­li­bil­i­ty of our jus­tice sys­tem.
…
The fac­tors that deter­mine which cas­es end with death are arbi­trary. The pres­tige and wealth of defen­dants, the qual­i­ty of their defense, even the race of their vic­tims can play into the out­come of a case. While blacks are far more like­ly to be mur­der vic­tims, the over­whelm­ing num­ber of mur­ders that lead to a death sen­tence involve vic­tims who are white. 
(“A Death Penalty Conversion,” Birmingham News, Nov. 6, 2005). See New Voices and Editorials.

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