DNA evidence builds case against the death penalty

by Lou Sessinger, Intelligencer, November 13, 2007

I spent a couple weeks in Italy recently, and it was while watching a TV news broadcast there that I learned that the U.S. Supreme Court had granted a stay of execution to a convicted murderer in Mississippi.

I have no particular interest in the case of Earl W. Berry, who is on death row for killing a woman 20 years ago. I'd never heard of him.

And initially I didn't understand why he was important enough to rate a segment on Italy's RAI 2 TV station. My knowledge of the Italian language is pretty rudimentary, but I understood that the news reporter was interviewing some Italian death-penalty opponents in the United States who were encouraged by the high court's action.

That's understandable. Italy, like most nations in Europe and indeed most nations in the world, doesn't impose the death penalty. And some Italians have difficulty understanding why the United States, the world's wealthiest and most powerful nation, does.

It was with this in mind that I read with interest a report of a forum on the death penalty held Friday in New Hope.

Thirty-seven states, including Pennsylvania, employ capital punishment; 13 states and the District of Columbia have no death penalty.

The Supreme Court's decision on Oct. 30 to at least delay Berry's scheduled execution had really nothing to do with the merits of Berry's appeal. However, it is being viewed as an indication that a majority of the justices intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal injection case from Kentucky next spring.

The issue of capital punishment, always controversial, is being challenged now on grounds that lethal injection, the form of execution used in Pennsylvania and most death penalty states, might violate the Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.

But there are other issues at hand that are causing some states to reconsider their use of capital punishment.

Chief among these is the significant number of convicted murderers sentenced to be executed for their alleged crimes who have been found to be innocent, thanks in some cases to technological advances such as DNA analysis.

Since 1973, 124 death-row inmates have been released from American prisons after being declared innocent of the charges that landed them there. There's no way of telling how many innocent people have been executed, but it's giving many lawmakers something to ponder.

In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf of Willow Grove, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, formed an advisory committee to examine the cases of people who have been wrongly convicted in the state.

The commission consists of about 30 members drawn from the state's prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, corrections officials, police, victim advocates and others. The commission is expected to report its findings and recommendations to the Senate by Nov. 30, 2008.

Across the river in New Jersey, the state Assembly is expected to vote next month on whether to abolish the death penalty and make the state's most severe punishment life in prison without parole. The state Senate is likely to take similar action before the legislative session ends in January. If approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jon Corzine, who opposes the death penalty, the move would make New Jersey the first state to vote to abolish capital punishment since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976.

New Jersey, like several other states, has had a moratorium on executions for at least a year.

Pennsylvania, while having no formal moratorium, has been historically slow to carry out executions. The state has executed only three inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in Pennsylvania in 1974. The last execution was carried out in 1999. Yet, there are 226 inmates awaiting execution on the state's death row.

I tend to waver in my support and opposition to capital punishment.

When I am in an emotional state — angry about some heinous act that has been committed — I often hold the opinion that execution is too kind a penalty for the offender.

But in more rational moments, I'm horrified to think that a state might put to death a person wrongly accused.

If you think about it coolly and without the raging heat of vengeance infecting your soul, what is capital punishment if not an emotionally charged exercise in retribution, a primal act of vengeance.

I'm not suggesting we go soft on criminals. Criminals must be punished for their lawless and often brutal acts. And a life sentence with no possibility of parole is a suitable punishment.

Taking a life in exchange for a life serves no genuine purpose other than tossing a hunk of meat to our baser appetites.

It's better to spare the lives of a thousand guilty individuals than to take the life of one who is guiltless.

Because if we allow that to happen, we are no better than those bloody ones we would condemn.

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