Diaz Makes Compelling Plea on Death Penalty

That's the title of an editorial from the January 2nd issue of the Hattiesburg American.  LINK

MISSISSIPPI SUPREME COURT Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. did not go out with a whisper. He ended his career on the bench with a dissent in the case of Doss vs. State, issued in mid-December, that was a plea to end the death penalty.

Diaz' argument was primarily a moral one: that society must recognize "even as murderers commit the most cruel and unusual crime, so too do executioners render cruel and unusual punishment."

Diaz argues that his personal experiences - he was tried and acquitted of bribery while on the Supreme Court - gives him a first-hand view of the "potentially oppressive power of government prosecution."

In all likelihood, his argument will fall on deaf ears in the state of Mississippi. But it should not. Diaz makes a number of compelling points:

Racial disparities exist in the administration of the death penalty. Courts are fallible, "and racial discrimination in the courtroom is no mere bit of ancient history." He mentions a U.S. Supreme Court decision, McCleskey, from a generation ago that upheld the sentencing of a black man for murder. A study at the time "showed that the race of his white victim made his Georgia trial court 22 times more likely to impose a death sentence."

"The McCleskey Court's ultimate holding notwithstanding, the study's findings speak for themselves and echo even today; in a state where roughly one-third of citizens are African Americans, more than half of Mississippi's death row inmates are black."

Innocent men are sentenced to die. "In 2008 alone," Diaz wrote, "two men - both black - convicted of murders in Mississippi in the mid-1990s have been exonerated fully by a non-profit group that investigates such injustices.

Earlier coverage of Judge Diaz' plea is here, and his dissent begins on page 25 of the Anthony Doss v. State of Mississippi ruling.

As noted here, Oregon State Supreme Court Justice Martha Walters cited Judge Diaz' opinion in her concurring opinion suggesting a review of the constitutionality of Oregon's death penalty.