Since 2000, 50 people have had their death sentences reversed in Pennsylvania as courts found serious legal errors in the inmates’ original trials. The number of reversals nearly equaled the number of people added to the state’s death row during the past 7 years and have come from a variety of courts. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued about 20% of the reversals, 50% of the death sentences were overturned by state trial judges during the next stage of review, and another 30% of the reversals came from federal courts.

Some prosecutors believe that the reversals have made capital punishment into a law that is “only on the books” in Pennsylvania. However, Widener University law professor and death penalty defense attorney Jules Epstein noted, “There clearly is a death penalty in Pennsylvania. People get sentenced to death. People sit on death row. And the real reason people haven’t been executed yet is because of tremendous problems within the system.” Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner added that many of the cases from that city have been reversed for good reason. He said that the court system “frequently trampled all over the rights of defendants” and that many of those facing the death penalty were represented by attorneys who did not necessarily know death penalty law or were prosecuted by overzealous prosecutors who were only concerned about getting convictions.

Executions have been rare in Pennsylvania, where 225 people are on death row. The state has carried out three executions since it reinstated capital punishment in 1978. In each of those cases, the prisoner waived his appeals and hence hastened the execution. During this same period, the state has freed 6 wrongly-convicted men from death row.
(Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1, 2007). See Costs, Representation, State-by-State Information and Innocence.

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