‘Fallible’ justice system needs safeguards

Effective Death Penalty Appeals Act would protect innocent Americans from execution

Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist once famously wrote that the judicial system, “like the human beings who administer it — is fallible.”

I couldn’t agree more.

It’s one of the reasons I introduced the Effective Death Penalty Appeals Act recently. My bill will allow death row inmates a chance to present newly discovered evidence of their innocence.

In the early 1980s, fresh out of law school, I won the freedom of a man on death row wrongfully convicted of a capital murder. The case had a profound impact, not only on my legal career but also on my views of justice, ethics and morality of the death penalty.

Under current law, a death row inmate can be barred from seeking a second or successive federal court review of newly discovered evidence of innocence-because federal law allows for only one application for habits corpus relief. So even if clear and convincing evidence of innocence is newly discovered, an innocent person can be put to death because of the mechanical denial the ability to present evidence of the wrongful conviction in a court of law. To send an innocent man or woman to death after refusing to consider newly discovered is inhumane, callous, and unjust. It is the ultimate miscarriage of justice. America is better than this.

To prevent such miscarriage of justice from taking place, I have filed the Effective Death Penalty Appeals Act. Once passed and signed into law, the Effective Death Penalty Appeals Act would empower federal courts to grant relief to a prisoner on death row who files a successive habeas corpus petition that presents newly discovered evidence of innocence.

The current law was passed because “tough on crime” politicians wanted to stop what they saw as endless appeals by the guilty. Unfortunately they failed to consider that this law would lead to avoidable miscarriages of justice and the state sponsored killing of innocent people wrongfully convicted.

The release of more than 165 death row inmates in the United States since 1973 shows that our justice system is far from perfect. And since 1989, there have been more than 367 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States — 21 of which were prisoners on death row.

We also know that our criminal justice system discriminates against African Americans. Black men and women are seven times more likely than their white counterparts to be wrongfully convicted of murder. In the past 31 years, 2,641 wrongfully convicted individuals have been exonerated — 47 percent of them were Black.

The death penalty is the ultimate penalty, and it should never be imposed when there is evidence that an innocent person stands to lose his or her life.
As Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the human rights organization Equal Justice Initiative, said: “The death penalty in America is a flawed, expensive policy, defined by bias and error. It targets the most vulnerable people in our society and corrupts the integrity of our criminal justice system. From police officers to family members of murder victims, Americans are recognizing that the death penalty does not make us safer.”

This is undoubtedly true.

Several states acknowledge this reality and have taken action. Since the advent of DNA exonerations in 1989, nine states have abolished the death penalty and three more have imposed moratoriums. However, 25 states — half of which are in the South — still impose the ultimate punishment of death by execution. In light of this tragic reality, the Effective Death Penalty Appeals Act is needed to enable death row Inmates with newly discovered evidence of innocence to present that fresh evidence in federal court.

Congress must ensure that innocent Americans are not put to death. The Effective Death Penalty Appeals Act will help prevent irreversible injustice from occurring, and it will strengthen justice in America.