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News Commentary
- Archive
of News Commentary
See all CADP News Commentary links
and excerpts from the years 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
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Broken Links
- Retired Prosecutor Says Death Penalty
Does Not Serve Families of Homicide Victims
Dan Glode, a former district attorney in
Lincoln County, Oregon, recently criticized
the death penalty for "the enormous
expense in dollars and emotional capital
[it takes] for the families of homicide victims." Writing
in the Newport News-Times, he experienced crime both as a prosecutor and as a
relative of a murder victim.
(7/26/10, DPIC Update)
- Former Police Investigator Says Law Enforcement
Doesn't Need the Death Penalty
Terrence Dwyer, formerly with the New York
Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation,
recently chronicled the evolution of his
thinking about the death penalty and whether
it serves the needs of law enforcement. Dwyer
cited several examples of recent exonerations
and noted, "Clearly, by keeping the
death penalty in place, we run the unacceptable
risk of executing the innocent. Those of
us in law enforcement do our best to take
the guilty off the streets, and more often
than not we get it right. But in a world
where mistakes are inevitable, the death
penalty has no place."
- Five Myths About the Death Penalty
Much of what we think we know about American
capital punishment comes from the longstanding
debate that surrounds the institution.
But in making their opposing claims, death-penalty
proponents and their abolitionist adversaries
perpetrate myths and half-truths that distort
the facts. The United States' death penalty
is not what its supporters - or its opponents
- would have us believe. (7/18/10, The
Washington Post)
- Former New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice
Calls for Abolition
Joseph P. Nadeau, who served on New Hampshire's
Supreme Court for six years and as a judge
for 37 years, recently testified before
the state's death penalty commission about
his opposition to the practice. In an op-ed,
Judge Nadeau summarized the moral and practical
reasons why he believes capital punishment
should be repealed.
(6/28/10, DPIC Update)
- Death Row Debacle
There is something disturbing and distasteful
about allowing states to take shortcuts
in their quests to put convicts to death.
But that is the essence of a deal Congress
struck with the states in the mid-1990s.
States that guaranteed and paid for a robust
system of legal representation for poor
death-row inmates could fast-track federal
appeals of state capital-punishment convictions.
To qualify, a legal defense program had
to be certified as acceptable by the federal
courts. (6/22/10,
Editorial by the Washington Post)
- Death by Firing Squad Highlights Inhumanity
of Death Penalty
When Ronnie
Lee Gardner is strapped into
a chair early on Friday morning, and a hood
is placed over his head and a small white
target is pinned over his heart, the citizens
of Utah - and indeed the entire country -
will be reminded in the most graphic of fashions
of the nation's ongoing adherence to the
barbaric, arbitrary and bankrupting practice
of capital punishment. (6/17/10, ACLU Blog
of Rights)
- The Spectacle Doesn't Change the Facts
So it is no small wonder that the death
penalty is increasingly falling into disuse.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty
less often, and jurors are returning death
sentences less often as well. The active
use of the death penalty is confined to
a handful of states. Even in Utah, despite
this splashy appearance on the executing
stage, executions are very rare, with less
than a dozen people on death row. (6/17/10,
The Huffington Post)
- Debate: Death Penalty Only Hurts Victims'
Families
Reallocating wasted dollars and attention
from the death penalty to mental health resources
would meet the real needs of murder victims'
family members. Gardner's high-profile execution
is an opportunity for the country to rethink
the death penalty. Let's put murderers in
prison and turn our attention and resources
to the real needs of murder victims' family
members. (6/17/10, AOL News)
- Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection
Continues in Death Penalty Cases
A recent study published by the Equal Justice
Initiative, a nonprofit human rights and
legal services organization in Alabama,
shows that the practice of excluding blacks
and other racial minorities from juries
remains widespread and largely unchecked,
especially in the South.
(6/7/10, DPIC Update)
- Murder Victim's Family Helps Case Settle
with Life Sentence
A desire for revenge, an eye for an eye,
would have been entirely understandable.
Somehow, the Carsons managed to resist
it in the name of their daughter. For their
courage in even facing this day, they deserve
the admiration of all. Their daughter was
a very special person. The same may be
said of those who raised her.
(5/26/10, Editorial by the Charlotte News & Observer)
- The Echoes of an Execution Reverberate
Loud and Clear
A real-life story told in "Willie
McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair" a
half-hour documentary to be broadcast Friday
on NPR. ... For nearly 15 years, beginning
in 1940, Mississippi used a "traveling
electric chair" that moved from county
to county to execute prisoners convicted
of capital crimes. What is perhaps most
unusual about the McGee case, though, is
not the portable electric chair or even
the public nature of the execution, but
the live radio coverage that accompanied
it, which was recorded and is excerpted
in Mr. Richman's
documentary. (5/5/10, New York Times)
- American
Bar Association Publishes "The State
of Criminal Justice 2010"
Ultimately, our society must decide whether
to continue with a system that has been
found in study after study to be far more
expensive than the actual alternative – in
which life without parole is the most serious
punishment. The question has become substantially
more important given the severe economic
downturn in 2008-10. In view of the lack
of persuasive evidence of societal benefits
from capital punishment, this is one ineffectual,
wasteful government program whose elimination
deserves serious consideration.
(5/3/10, DPIC Update)
- Death
Penalty "Neither Just Nor
Moral"
More than a decade has passed since the
state of Utah executed a convicted murderer.
Now, as the state prepares to once again
apply the death penalty, is a good time
for Utahns and their elected leaders to
consider abandoning this archaic and deeply
flawed form of punishment. In the interim
between the execution of Joseph Mitchell
Parsons in 1999 and the expected setting
of a death date for Ronnie Lee Gardner,
the legal, moral and ethical arguments
supporting capital punishment in Utah have
been eroding like sand castles at high
tide. That is because the state-sponsored
killing of a human being, no matter how
heinous the crime, is permitted by a system
that has been proven beyond doubt to be
inherently capricious, unfair and shockingly
fallible. And, one by one, state legislatures
across the country are deciding that they
can no longer justify, even for merely
financial reasons, retaining the death
penalty as their supreme form of punishment.
Already, 15 states have dropped the death
penalty and some dozen others have looked
at following suit. Lifetime imprisonment
under severe restrictions, arguably worse
than death, has become the preferred
alternative.
(4/17/10, Editorial by the Salt Lake Tribune)
- Capital
Punishment Leaves US on Wrong Side of
History
The United States of America, proud
of its commitment to fairness and justice,
is being left behind on one of the most important
international human rights issues of our
age. We are way behind the curve. Surpassed
in human rights by, most recently, Togo and
Burundi. The US has a worse record on the
essential human right to life than Turkmenistan,
Ukraine, Liberia, Mexico and Rwanda. And
those are only a few of the nations that
have left us in the dust, just in this century
so far. In 2009, only 18 nations on the planet
executed human beings. This great nation
is in that small, shameful community. To
be precise, we placed at number five, behind
Saudi Arabia, but with more state killing
of people than Yemen, Sudan, Viet Nam and
Syria. China executed more than all other
nations combined last year, but they're just
the leader of a club we should not be proud
to belong to. (4/16/10, The Jurist)
- Death
Penalty Hurts - Not Helps - Victims'
Families
Kathleen Garcia, a victims' advocate and
expert on traumatic grief, recently shared
her opinions on the death penalty in New
Hampshire, a state that is studying the
issue through its Commission on Capital
Punishment. Garcia, a member of New Jersey's
Death Penalty Study Commission, wrote, "Make
no mistake - I am a conservative,
a victims’ advocate and a death penalty
supporter. But my real life experience
has taught me that as long as the death
penalty is on the books in any form, it
will continue to harm survivors. For that
reason alone, it must be ended." Garcia
suffered through the murder of a family
member in 1984, but has found the death
penalty to be much more harmul than helpful: "It
is my opinion, as well as the view of other
long-standing victim advocates throughout
New Jersey, that our capital punishment
system harmed the survivors of murder victims.
It may have been put in place to serve
us, but in fact it was a colossal failure
for the many families I serve."
(4/5/10, DPIC Update)
- Death Row's Elimination Would Save Money
A recent editorial in the Spokane (WA)
Spokesman-Review called for elimination
of the death penalty in light of its high
costs and the state's tight budget.
(3/22/10, DPIC Update)
- Challenging
the Constitutionality of the Federal
Death Penalty
A recent article in
the Akron Law Review asks whether the
Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA) is
in compliance with the Sixth Amendment's
right to confront witnesses because
it allows hearsay evidence in determining
whether a defendant is eligible for
the death penalty. ... Allowing the
government to prove statutory aggravating
factors … with testimonial hearsay,
even where the defendant has never had
an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant(s),
is not constitutional." (3/22/10, DPIC Update)
- Caution Urged on Death Penalty Expansion
John Whitehead, president of the conservative
Rutherford Institute, recently voiced concerns
in the Huffington Post about expanding
the death penalty in Virginia. He noted, "As
capital punishment studies have shown,
whether or not you are sentenced to death
often has little to do with the crime committed
and everything to do with your race, where
you live, and who prosecutes your case." (3/1/10, DPIC Update)
- MSNBC Reports on Costs of Death Penalty
View the online video. (2/22/10, CADP)
- Resources on the Death Penalty for Communities
of Faith
The Death Penalty Information Center has
recently updated its information packet
entitled "Death
Penalty Resources for Communities of Faith." This
packet was initially developed to help
a wide spectrum of religious groups address
the death penalty by providing information,
discussion questions, and multi-media resources.
(2/8/10, DPIC Update)
- Conservative Leaders Call for End to
Death Penalty
Roy Brown, state senator and
2008 Republican nominee for governor of
Montana, said that opposition to capital
punishment aligns well with his conservative
ideology. He is reaching out to social
and fiscal conservatives, hoping to create
a bipartisan movement against capital punishment.
Brown noted, "I
believe that life is precious from the
womb to a natural death." He continued, "Criminals
should be prosecuted. I want it to be life
without parole. In the long run, that's
much cheaper."
(2/1/10, DPIC Update)
- A Decade of Progress on Death Penalty
Justice
A recent editorial in the Dallas Morning
News recalled that the paper had reversed
its position in support of the death penalty
in April 2007.
... "These are all signs that courts,
prosecutors, politicians and the public are
recognizing the problems in our imperfect
system of justice," the editorial states. "This
newspaper feels more strongly than ever that
those flaws are sufficiently widespread that
the justice system cannot be trusted to impose
irreversible sentences of death." (1/25/10, DPIC Update)
- Death
Penalty System Irretrievably Broken
A recent editorial in the Charlotte Observer
in North Carolina cited the American Law
Institute's decision in 2009 to separate
itself from the death penalty system as another
reason for the state to abolish the practice.
The ALI, whose model death penatly standards
were instrumental in the U.S. Supreme Court's
decision to allow the reinstatement of capital
punishment in 1976, has recently disavowed
its own recommendations because the many
problems of the system had rendered it unworkable.
The editorial also cited a recently published
study by Duke University Professor Philip
Cook that concluded North Carolina could
save $11 million annually over the costs
of life imprisonment if it abolished the
death penalty. (1/18/10, DPIC Update)
- Kill the Death Penalty
The editor of the
editorial page of the Palm Beach Post recently
called for an end to the death penalty
in Florida. Citing DPIC's recent report
on the costs of the death penalty, Randy
Schultz notes that, "Every objective
study shows that life imprisonment costs
much less than sentencing someone to death." (1/11/10, DPIC Update)
- Denial of Death: Time to End Capital
Punishment
An editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune recently
called for an end to capital punishment,
stating that "the legal, moral and
practical arguments against capital punishment
have evolved from sound to unassailable" since
the punishment was reinstated over 30 years
ago. (1/11/10, DPIC Update)
- Researchers
Find "No Empirical Support" for
Deterrence Theory
Researchers from the University of Texas
at Dallas recently published a study on whether
executions deter homicides using state panel
date and employing well-known econometric
procedures for panel analysis. The authors
found "no empirical support for the
argument that the existence or application
of the death penalty deters prospective offenders
from committing homicide." (1/4/10, DPIC Update)
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