That's the title of Bob Ray Sander's column at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Two events last week -- one in the Connecticut Senate chamber, the
other in a Dallas courtroom -- helped once again to focus attention on
two of the nation's most glaring flaws: wrongful convictions and capital
punishment.
In Dallas, three more men were exonerated for crimes
they did not commit, bringing to 30 the total number of exonerations in
Dallas County since 2001. One of the men had been sentenced to 99 years
in prison for a 1994 violent purse snatching involving a 79-year-old
woman.
About 1,600 miles away in Hartford, the Connecticut Senate
voted 20-16 to repeal the death penalty based partly on the growing
evidence of wrongful convictions and the possibility that an innocent
person could be executed. The state's House of Representatives is likely
to approve the measure soon, and the governor has vowed to sign it into
law.
If the measure is enacted, Connecticut will join a growing
number of states (the fifth in five years) to abolish capital
punishment. California voters will weigh in on the subject in a ballot
initiative in November.
After the Dallas defendants were
officially cleared in court, both District Attorney Craig Watkins and
District Judge Lena Levario declared that it was time to have a
discussion about race and justice, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Actually we need a discussion about much more than that in America.
The
latest Dallas case again revealed that prosecutors withheld evidence
from the defense and that police, during their initial investigation,
subjected the suspects to prejudicial identification tactics. These
kinds of injustices cry out for discussion.
How many innocent
people are behind bars based on overzealous police work, unethical
prosecution or just honest mistakes? How many might be on Death Row?
When
it comes to executions, there are signs that the nation's thirst for
blood is waning, bringing some hope to those of us who have been
fighting against capital punishment for so long.
Even in Texas,
which has the busiest death chamber in the country, the numbers are
decreasing. Texas juries are sentencing fewer people to death, and the
population on Death Row is declining.
Texas executed 13 people
last year, the lowest number since 1996 when three people were killed by
lethal injection. In 2000, a record 40 executions occurred in the
state.
Four people have been put to death this year in Huntsville,
bringing the total to 481 since 1982, when Texas resumed executions
after the Supreme Court had declared capital punishment "cruel and
unusual" in 1972.
Today 298 people are on Texas' Death Row,
including nine women. The ethnic breakdown is 29.2 percent Anglo, 40.6
percent black, 28.5 percent Hispanic and 1.7 percent other. At the end
of fiscal 2001, the Death Row population was 446.
Those are all good signs, but not good enough.
If
more states continue to lead the way, maybe the Lone Star State will
eventually follow. New York, New Jersey, Illinois and New Mexico
recently repealed capital punishment, and The Associated Press reports
that Kansas and Kentucky are considering it.
Many people
acknowledge that we have a flawed justice system, and that's
understandable with any structure that depends on human judgment and
actions.
But it is because of the fallibility of humans that we
mortals should not be charged with deciding to take a life -- the one
thing we can never give back in case of a mistake -- in the name of the
state.
The progress toward abolishment of the death penalty has been steady, but slow. It's now time to pick up the momentum.
I'm
ready to see the movement gather steam, wage an all-out legal assault
and awareness campaign to change these barbaric laws one state
legislature at a time.
We are a nation that should be better than this. Let's vow to end capital punishment in this country, now and forever.
Bob Ray Sanders' column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. 817-390-7775
Twitter: @BobRaySanders
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/04/10/3873758/time-to-end-death-penalty-in-texas.html#storylink=cpy
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more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/04/10/3873758/time-to-end-death-penalty-in-texas.html#storylink=cpy
1 comment:
Personally, I have no issue with someone being lethally injected for committing acts of violent and premeditated murder, none at all, but those poor, innocent families that are left behind. As if they haven't suffered enough already by having a convicted killer in the family, we can only surmise at the unimaginable pain they experience when their family member is put to death. Focus solely on the crimes of these vicious and callous murderers and for many of us it is really quite easy to support the death penalty. If we stop for a moment, though, and consider the families of these killers in a way that they themselves never did when they committed their murderous acts, we might just be satisfied with life in prison without parole, at least, that's my view.
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