DEATH PENALTY ACCORDING TO AMERICAN LAW

Death penalty according to American law

Death penalty according to American law

Abstract

Great effort has been made in pretrial, trial, appeals, writ and clemency procedures to minimize the chance of an innocent being convicted, sentenced to death or executed. Since 1973, legal protections have been so extraordinary that 37% of all death row cases have been overturned for due process reasons or commuted.

Introduction

Indeed, inmates are six times more likely to get off death row by appeals than by execution. (“Capital Punishment 1995", BJS, 1996). And, in fact, many of those cases were overturned based on post conviction new laws, established by legislative or judicial decisions in other cases.

Opponents claim that 69 "innocent" death row inmates have been released since 1973. ("Innocence and the Death Penalty", Death Penalty Information Center, July, 1997). Just a casual review, using the DPIC's own case descriptions, reveals that of 39 cases reviewed (Sec. A, B, & C, pg. 12-21), that the DPIC offers no evidence of innocence in 29, or 78%, of those cases. Incredibly, the DPIC reviews "Recent Cases of Possible Mistaken Executions" (p 23-24), wherein they list the cases of Roger Keith Coleman, Leonel Herrera, and Jesse Jacobs - 3 cases which helped solidify the anti-death penalty movements' penchant for lack of full disclosure and/or fraud. For the fourth case, therein, that of Coleman Wayne Gray, the DPIC makes no effort to claim innocence.

Death penalty according to American law

The DPIC and most opponents fail to review that the role of clemency and appeals in such cases is to judge the merits of death row inmates claims regarding innocence and/or additional trial error. Indeed, the release of those 69 inmates proves that such procedures worked precisely, and often generously, as intended. Also contrary to opponents claims, clemency is used generously to grant mercy to death row murderers and to spare inmates whose guilt has come into question. In fact, 135 death row inmates have been spared by clemency or commutation from 1973-95 (ibid.). This represents 43% of the total of those executed during that time - a remarkable record of consideration and mercy.

In reviewing the DPIC's original 1993 study, finding 48 (of the 69) "innocent" defendants on death row, the DPIC states its debt for the " . . . ground breaking work done by . . . Professors Michael Radelet and Hugo Bedau"(p 1) in their "Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases". See below.

The most significant study conducted to evaluate the evidence of the "innocent executed" is the Bedau-Radelet Study ("Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases," 40, 1 Stanford Law Review, 11/87). The study concluded that 23 innocent persons had been executed since 1900. However, the study's methodology was so flawed that at least 12 of those cases had no evidence of innocence and substantial evidence of guilt. Bedau & Radelet, both opponents, "consistently presented incomplete and misleading accounts of the evidence." (Markman, Stephen J. & Cassell, Paul G., "Protecting the Innocent: A Response to the Bedau-Radelet ...