With the nation’s attention focused on the execution of convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh, the public is forced to consider the fairness and justification for the death penalty.

Friday, June 15, 2001

With the nation’s attention focused on the execution of convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh, the public is forced to consider the fairness and justification for the death penalty.

Most have no doubt as to the guilt of McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing based on the evidence and his public admission. But the reasons behind the delay in his execution should give pause to those who support the death penalty.

McVeigh’s execution was put off just a week before it was scheduled because the FBI failed to turn over thousands of pages of evidence to his defense team before the trial. While it is unlikely the evidence does anything to exonerate McVeigh, the fact that such a blunder by the government came to light just days before the scheduled execution is frightening. It highlights the fact that errors or misconduct by the government could change the outcome of a conviction – perhaps only after an execution takes place.

The chance for faulty convictions in death cases is not so rare as people might think. In the past 25 years, nearly 80 men have been exonerated and freed from death row.

The number of faulty convictions among death row inmates should cause even ardent supporters of the death penalty to re-evaluate. It should also prompt President Bush to heed calls to declare a moratorium on federal executions until more study is done.

Death penalty opponents who asked the president for a halt to federal executions say there are not only questions about innocent people being executed, but serious questions about why a majority of those on death row are minorities.

Indeed, the disproportionate number of minorities on death row should in itself halt executions. A Justice Department report released last fall said that between 1995 and 2000, U.S. attorneys recommended the death penalty be sought for 183 defendants, 26 percent of them whites and 74 percent minorities.

The Justice Department said that despite those figures, their study found no intentional bias involved in who gets the death sentence, but rather a variety of issues that result in a large proportion of death row inmates being minorities. It may indeed not be intentional bias, but there is obviously serious flaws in a system that puts minorities on death row in such wildly disproportionate numbers.

If those aren’t reasons enough to end the death penalty, there are also issues of poor legal representation for many defendants facing death sentences and cases of the mentally retarded being executed.

Putting to death the most heinous of criminals has an obvious appeal to many Americans. But punishment and justice can be attained with life in prison without parole without wondering how many innocent people are being put to death.