Articles

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Washington Post called atten­tion to the case of Earl Washington, who was wrong­ly con­vict­ed and almost exe­cut­ed in Virginia before being freed fol­low­ing DNA tests. The edi­to­r­i­al notes that even a con­fes­sion is far from defin­i­tive proof that the right per­son has been con­vict­ed. Washington was spared through the clemen­cy process after courts denied his claims. Now a new defen­dant, whose DNA matched evi­dence from the crime scene, has been charged.

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Delaware News Journal con­clud­ed that the uncer­tain­ties and delays of the death penal­ty favor end­ing the sys­tem and replac­ing it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Such a sys­tem would bet­ter serve vic­tims and their fam­i­lies, and bring swifter justice:

Stuart Streichler served as a law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit short­ly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul­ing in Gregg v. Georgia. He observed many cap­i­tal cas­es and now con­cludes: ​“A fun­da­men­tal idea of American law is that all defen­dants should receive fair tri­als all of the time. The per­sis­tent fail­ure to come close to that in death penal­ty cas­es under­mines the integri­ty of the legal sys­tem.” Streichler’s op-ed appreared recent­ly in the Miami Herald:

Professor Michael Meltsner, who worked as an attor­ney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in its efforts to chal­lenge the death penal­ty in the 1960s and 70s, recent­ly assessed the U.S.‘s appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty over the past 30 years. He not­ed that today’s death penal­ty sys­tem is ​“bro­ken” and fails to make the nation a safer soci­ety. Writing in the Boston Globe, Meltsner wrote:

In a recent op-ed, Jack Fuller, for­mer edi­tor and pub­lish­er of the Chicago Tribune, called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Citing a series of mis­takes by eye­wit­ness­es, police and foren­sic experts, he stat­ed that the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is too deeply flawed to entrust with car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. Pointing to the like­ly inno­cence of Carlos DeLuna, a Texas man who was exe­cut­ed in 1989, Fuller con­clud­ed that the death penal­ty should be abol­ished because ​“no gov­er­ment is good enough to entrust with the absolute pow­er that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment entails.”…

Dr. Orin Guidry, pres­i­dent of the 40,000-member American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), issued a pub­lic state­ment strong­ly urg­ing mem­bers to ​“steer clear” of any par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions by lethal injec­tion. In a four-page ​“Message from the President,” Guidry not­ed that anes­the­si­ol­o­gists have been ​“reluc­tant­ly thrust into the mid­dle” of the legal con­tro­ver­sy over lethal injec­tions. In recent months, the pro­ce­dures being used around the United States have been chal­lenged because they may result in unnec­es­sary and excru­ci­at­ing pain in vio­la­tion of the ban on cru­el and unusu­al punishment.

Did this man die…for this man’s crime?

The New York Times

Recent edi­to­ri­als in The Washington Post and Roanoke Times praised Virginia Governor Tim Kaine’s deci­sion to delay the exe­cu­tion of Percy Walton in order to ensure that he is sane enough to exe­cute. The papers not­ed that Kaine’s deci­sion, which drew crit­i­cism from some death penal­ty advo­cates, demon­strat­ed ​“com­pe­tence in law­ful­ly apply­ing the death penal­ty” and was ​“coura­geous.”

Monday, June 12, 2006BY RICHARD D. POMPELIO