CAN THE DEATH PENALTY BE REFORMED?

The proposed reforms to the death penalty might improve a system that has been repeatedly declared to be broken. But can these changes really “fix” our broken system of capital punishment?

Even if we were to implement every imaginable reform, it is simply not possible to establish a system of capital punishment that is fair and accurate. The reason the latest round of reforms will fail — as have the reforms of the past — is that most of the problems with the death penalty process don't stem from the lack of procedural protections, but rather from the absence of human infallibility. The Governor’s Commission on Capital Punishment recognized this when it voted, by a majority of its members, in favor of abolishing the death penalty.

Race
There is no doubt that reforms can be adopted that might lessen — but not eradicate — the effect of race on the death penalty process. Some individuals, whether innocent or guilty, will continue to be sentenced to death because of their race or the race of the victim in their case.

Eyewitness mistakes
There is no doubt that reforms can be adopted that will increase the reliability of certain types of witnesses in capital cases. But no reforms can prevent honest witnesses from mistakenly identifying an innocent man, as in the Anthony Porter case.

False testimony
No reforms can prevent the real killers from making deals with prosecutors to save their own skin by falsely pointing the finger of guilt at an innocent man, as in the Joe Burrows case.

Police and prosecutorial misconduct
No reforms even address the persistence of misconduct by these arms of the state. Even if the miscreants constitute a minority of police, prosecutors and judges, it is the refusal of these state and local bodies to acknowledge there is a problem and attempt to address it that is particularly disturbing. Without oversight, how do these problems get reformed?

Arbitrariness
And even when there is no question of the defendant's guilt, no reforms can eliminate the inherent arbitrariness of sentencing approximately 2% of convicted murderers to death, when their crimes and criminal backgrounds are, in most cases, no different from the other 98% who were sentenced to long prison terms or life without parole. Rather than the heinous nature of their crime, their death sentence is determined by the arbitrary factors of: