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 | "We have enormous protections, the best by far, but we're never going to have a system that will never execute an innocent person." Statement by the Chairperson of the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives in support of the death penalty in 1997. |
What is at stake:
Both pro-death penalty and anti-death penalty advocates share one belief: Proving that the state executed an innocent person would significantly reduce public acceptance of the death penalty.
How many of the approximately 7,000 people executed in the U.S. during the 20th century were innocent? Nobody knows.
A "smoking gun" -- a case of an innocent person having been executed -- has not yet been proven to everyone's satisfaction. The best chance of finding a "smoking gun" might be to compare crime scene evidence to the DNA of a person who has already been executed. Unfortunately, such samples are not easily obtained.
Topics covered in this section:
| Executions of some probably innocent inmates |
| Studies of the reliability of the legal system in capital cases |
References used:
- "Missouri death sentence case gets another look. If innocence of executed man is proven, case would set a precedent," MSNBC, 2005-AUG-05, at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
- "New York State legislative committee defeats death penalty," Equal Justice USA, 2005-APR-12, at: http://www.quixote.org/
- Claudia Whitman, et al., "Reasonable Doubts: Is the U.S. Executing
Innocent People? A Preliminary Report of the Grassroots Investigation
Project," Equal Justice USA, 2000-OCT-26, at:
http://www.quixote.org/ The full report in PDF format is at:
http://www.quixote.org/ This is a PDF file. You may require software to read it. Software can be obtained free from:
- "Fatal Flaw: Innocence and the death penalty in the USA," Amnesty International, at: http://web.amnesty.org/
- Hugo Adam Bedau and Michael L. Radelet, "Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases," Stanford Law Review 1987.
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Copyright © 2005 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally posted: 2005-AUG-07
Latest update: 2005-AUG-07
Author: B.A. Robinson
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