NEW VOICES: The Birmingham News Changes Its Position on the Death Penalty

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.