The Death Penalty – Is it in Decline?
The Death Penalty Information Center, a group opposed to the death penalty, issued their year end 2009 report at deathpenaltyinfo.org. It indicated a decline in the number of executions during the decade just concluded with an up tick in 2009.
The startling thing to me about this report is the assertion that there are on average about three people exonerated from their convictions per year in death penalty cases and as many as five per year in the decade just concluded. This seems startling given the resources used to make sure that the death penalty is used only in response to heinous crimes and imposed on only the guilty.
On the other hand, there is no branch of government as starved for resources as the court system. That includes the resources committed to defense of an accused as well as prosecution. Overloaded systems and people make mistakes. Thus, the moral and policy issues surrounding the death penalty may not be the real or important issues. The real issue may be technical. Do we have the resources to manage death penalty cases from arrest to execution and remain true to our sense of justice?
Fifteen states no longer have the death penalty, according to the report, with New Mexico being the newest member of that club. I have to wonder at the politics of that. What political forces would have to exist to bring about the end of the death penalty? I also have to wonder, if political forces can align to bring about the end of the death penalty, why can’t political forces align to bring about the end of abortion?
Of course, as a society, we cannot agree to give up our paper dollar bills in favor of dollar coins, so seeking agreement on weightier issues is nearly a form of extremism.
