Editor's Desk: Broken Justice

By Michael F. Flach
Herald Editor
(From the issue of 11/20/03)

In "Faithful Citizenship," the U.S. Catholic bishops declare that society has a right and duty to defend itself against violent crime and a duty to reach out to victims of crime. "Yet our nation’s increasing reliance on the death penalty cannot be justified," the bishop say. "We do not teach that killing is wrong by killing those who kill others."

The bishops urge passage of legislation that would address problems in the judicial system and restrict and restrain the use of the death penalty through use of DNA evidence, a guarantee of effective counsel and efforts to address issues of racial justice.

"There is no dignity in taking a human being's life for the death of another," said Sister Helen Prejean, author of the book Dead Man Walking. "Inmates on death row dream over and over the nightmare of their death. There is no way to kill a human being without torturing him."

Sister Prejean, whose second book on the death penalty will be published next August, recently addressed more than 320 students, faculty and staff prior to accepting the James Cardinal Gibbons Medal, the highest honor of Catholic University’s alumni association.

The bishops and Sister Prejean’s remarks coincided with a new report that states Virginia's death penalty system is so flawed that it cannot ensure a reliable determination of guilt or innocence.

The study, "Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Virginia," was conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union and endorsed by a broad range of organizations, including the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy and Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The report found that prosecutorial misconduct and incompetent counsel, combined with arbitrary restrictions on presenting evidence and fixing trial mistakes, has created a flawed system that can convict innocent people and deprive others of a fair hearing.

The report makes extensive recommendations for improving the system, from ending the three week post-trial limit on admitting non-DNA evidence of innocence, to making public the names of prosecutors who have engaged in prosecutorial misconduct.

"Support for capital punishment is based on the belief that it's applied rationally and fairly, and is reserved for the worst of the worst offenders," said Rachel King, staff attorney for the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project and author of the report. "But we found example after example where this was simply not the case. No one can assure that the people on death row are actually guilty, and if they are guilty, that they should have been sentenced to death. "

The report is an update of a 2000 study that examined prosecutorial discretion in the charging of capital crimes, quality of legal representation for the accused at trial, appellate review of trials resulting in the death penalty and the role of race.

The revised and expanded report updates that information and includes information on people who have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death row in Virginia, and an in-depth look at several cases of prosecutorial misconduct.

"In Virginia, whether or not you are sentenced to death has little to do with the crime, and everything to do with your race, where you live, and who prosecutes your case," said John Whitehead, executive director of the Rutherford Institute.

The report will be distributed to all Virginia lawmakers. It is available on-line at www.aclu.org <http://www.aclu.org/> or www.acluva.org. Print copies can be obtained from the Virginia ACLU office: 6 North Sixth Street, Suite 400, Richmond, VA 23219, ph. (804)644-8022.

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