CNN.com - Judge in Boston notes 'mounting evidence' of misuse of death penalty - Aug. 12, 2003: A federal judge has ruled a man accused of multiple murders is eligible for execution, although he noted concerns about whether use of the death penalty results in the killing of innocent people. U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf allowed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty despite "the mounting evidence that innocent individuals have been sentenced to death, and undoubtedly executed, more often than previously understood." [...] Massachusetts has no state death penalty, and only once before -- in Michigan -- has the federal death penalty been given in a state without capital punishment. "The day may come when courts properly can and should declare the ultimate sanction to be unconstitutional in all cases," Wolf wrote. "However, that day has not come yet."
How ... odd.
Frankly, that seems the easy way out. If you believe that the death penalty is being misused, then surely it is your responsibility as a judge to prevent its misuse.
That said, he was stuck with the issues raised by the defense, and they may well not have been applicable to the case at hand, aside from the "cruel and unusual punishment" issue, which has already been decided by the Supreme Court.
This is also another case of the Justice Department imposing the death penalty in a state that doesn't otherwise have one. This might make it somewhat more difficult for Justice to win their case. Judging from results in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, juries don't seem to take kindly to their state being bullied by the federal government. But I digress.
Judge allows for death in Sampson case (Boston Herald, Tuesday, August 12, 2003): ..... But U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf also said he is convinced the feds will execute an innocent person one day and asked, "How large a fraction of the executed must be innocent to offend contemporary standards of decency?''
Well, frankly, if it's not in your state and it's not people you know, quite a large number. Most polls have shown that people in this country are relatively comfortable with the concept of having the state murder innocent people, as long as the odd criminal is also executed. After all, many people seem to reason, if they were arrested, then clearly they must have done something, so even if they didn't do what they were accused of doing, they're still criminals, so why should we care?
Posted by iain at August 12, 2003 06:36 PMComments
