by TChris

TalkLeft opposes efforts to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts. Here's one reason, from a USA Today editorial entitled "Let Death Penalty Die":

Laurence Adams ...who was sentenced to die in the electric chair in 1974 for the murder of a Boston subway worker, was freed on May 20 after a judge overturned his conviction based on new evidence that cast doubt on his guilt. Adams escaped execution because Massachusetts had abolished capital punishment soon after he was sentenced. His near-death experience exposes capital punishment's fundamental flaw: the risk of killing an innocent person.

The procedural safeguards proposed in Massachussetts (a "no doubt" standard of proof, separate juries for sentencing, requiring scientific corroboration of witness accusations, providing skilled counsel with adequate defense resources) would help correct some of the flaws that threaten the execution of the innocent, and states that insist on a death penalty should give them a close look. As welcome as these safeguards would be, the editorial reminds us that no procedure can assure perfection, and that nothing short of perfection should justify the state's decision to end a life.