“California may be about to execute an innocent man,” is the provocative opening sentence of Nicholas Kristof’s 12/8/2010 column. He writes about the death penalty case of Kevin Cooper, a black man who faces lethal injection for allegedly murdering a white family, and the attempts by the federal circuit court judges to stop the execution of a man most likely framed by police.
Apparently, all judicial avenues are exhausted–it’s not clear why the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to rehear this case–and the execution is moving inexorably to its conclusion. I cannot judge whether the facts presented by Mr. Kristof or the police are correct, but I can judge that the State should not execute someone when there is doubt. Life imprisonment is a better solution than execution simply because it does not end a life, or the attempt to arrive at truth and justice.
The Governor of California can commute the sentence. Will Governor Schwarzenegger do the right thing? Or will time run out on his term and it will be up to the new Governor Brown?
In a country founded on the ideal that we are innocent until proven guilty, it is not acceptable to execute people, and then after the fact, discover they were innocent. By then, the truth, and the defendant, have been killed, along with the ideals of this country.
It is more harmful to our country to keep executing people than it is to enact life imprisonment, for the sole reason that sometimes the system gets it wrong.
United States Supreme Court–are you listening? End capital punishment. There is no way to ensure that the convictions are 100% accurate, which means we will execute innocent people.
Punish the guilty but do not execute the guilty–or the innocent.
