[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 28



USA:

Death Penalty Systems Questioned


Serious problems in state death penalty systems compromise fairness and
accuracy in capital punishment cases and justify a nationwide freeze on
executions, the American Bar Association says.

Problems cited in a report released Sunday by the lawyers' organization
include:

-Spotty collection and preservation of DNA evidence, which has been used
to exonerate more than 200 inmates;

-Misidentification by eyewitnesses;

-False confessions from defendants; and

-Persistent racial disparities that make death sentences more likely when
victims are white.

The report is a compilation of separate reviews done over the past three
years of how the death penalty operates in eight states: Alabama, Arizona,
Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Teams that studied the systems in Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania did
not call for a halt to executions in those states. But the ABA said every
state with the death penalty should review its execution procedures before
putting anyone else to death.

"After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle
executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply
flawed," said Stephen F. Hanlon, chairman of the ABA Death Penalty
Moratorium Implementation Project. "The death penalty system is rife with
irregularity."

The ABA, which takes no position on capital punishment, did not study
lethal injection procedures that are under challenge across the nation.
The procedures will be reviewed by the Supreme Court early next year in a
case from Kentucky.

State and federal courts have effectively stopped most executions pending
a high court decision.

Prosecutors and death penalty supporters have said the 8 state studies
were flawed because the ABA teams were made up mainly of death penalty
opponents.

On the Net: ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project:
http://www.abanet.org/moratorium/home.html

Death Penalty Information Center: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

Criminal Justice Legal Foundation: http://www.cjlf.org

(source: Associated Press)