Three US Newspapers Reverse 100-Year-Old Stand on Death Penalty

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/11/1117/

Three US Newspapers Reverse 100-Year-Old Stand on Death Penalty
by Eli Clifton

WASHINGTON - Three established U.S. newspapers, two of them among the 10 largest in the country, in three different states have in the past weeks abandoned their century-old support of the death penalty and become passionate advocates of a ban on state-sponsored killing.

The newspapers — the Chicago Tribune in Illinois, the smaller Sentinel in Pennsylvania and the Dallas Morning News in Texas — announced their change of heart in strongly-argued editorials following a series of investigative articles highlighting the flaws in the death penalty system in their states and country. 0511 06

“I think in a word it’s the issue of innocence that has brought about these editorials,” Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told IPS. “The weight of evidence in death penalty cases as seen and confirmed in DNA testing has made the death penalty too risky.”

The Chicago Tribune said its “groundbreaking” reporting suggested that innocent people had been convicted and executed. Two cases in Texas were cited. Also over the last 30 years more than 130 people had been released from death row in the U.S. after evidence was presented that undermined the cases against them. In that time, Illinois had executed 12 people and freed 18 from death row.

“The evidence of mistakes, the evidence of arbitrary decisions, the sobering knowledge that governments can’t provide certainty that the innocent will not be put to death — all that prompts this call for an end to capital punishment. It is time to stop killing people in the people’s name,” the Chicago Tribune wrote, reversing its pro-capital punishment position held since 1869.

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[rpannier]

1. Thanks for coming late to the party...

At least reality has finally struck.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. The death penalty does seem to be fading away...

as an artifact of times past. New Jersey is on the verge of abolishing it completely and New York is sort of bumbling about the same way. California's got a case of the knickertwists over their new, and very expensive, death house. Texas is rife with horror stories about miscarriages of justice.

As far as I can figure it out, support for capital punishment has always been a mile wide but an inch deep. I've seen it mainly as an issue in gubernatorial politics, with Congress and state legislatures not paying much attention but just bowing to whatever prevailing winds seem to be blowing.

Never underrate the organized oppositon to it, though. Even though the protests at death houses seem sparse, organizations like New Jersey's NJADP have worked tirelessly lobbying state capitals for abolition. It seems to be working.