The ABA Missouri Assessment Report is available at the link.
Today's Kansas City Star reports, "Missouri death-penalty cases should be reduced, study says." It's by Jason Hancock.
Missouri should narrow the kinds of cases subject to the death penalty so that only the most serious murders are eligible, according a two-year study sponsored by the American Bar Association.
The state also should prohibit the execution of the severely mentally ill and do a better job of preserving forensic evidence such as DNA samples. it said.
The study, which does not take a position on whether the death penalty should be legal, was released Thursday and conducted by a panel of law professors, private attorneys and federal judges who had been nominated to the bench by Republican and Democratic presidents.
They said serious problems with the death penalty in Missouri must be addressed to ensure fairness in the system and prevent an innocent person from losing his or her life.
“It is the ultimate penalty, and we’ve got to get it right every time,” said Douglas Copeland, a St. Louis attorney who served on the panel.
Among the panel’s other suggestions: improving standards for defense counsel in death penalty cases; revising jury instructions to help jurors better understand their roles in death penalty cases, and narrowing the number of cases subject to the death penalty.
“We discovered important procedural and resource changes that could dramatically reduce errors and inconsistencies in Missouri’s death penalty system,” said Paul Litton, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
"Study recommends changes to Missouri death penalty system," by Elizabeth Crisp for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Missouri prosecutors too often are given the opportunity to seek the death penalty in murder cases, according to a new report.
Aside from limiting the types of cases in which the death penalty can be sought, the American Bar Association-sponsored report makes more than 25 recommendations that it says would improve fairness in the use of capital punishment here. The recommendations range from new evidence preservation policies to laws that aim to protect the mentally disabled.
Currently, prosecutors can use one of 17 aggravating circumstances to argue for death sentences in murder cases.
“Under the current law, virtually any murder is eligible for the death penalty,” said St. Louis attorney Douglas Copeland, who co-chaired the assessment committee that drafted the recommendations.
And:
Missouri is the 10th state for which the ABA has sponsored a death penalty report.
Copeland said the committee members’ views on the death penalty were split. The ABA has sought a moratorium on use of the death penalty in the United States, but the Missouri group did not consider whether the state should end the use of capital punishment, he said.
Instead, the goal, Copeland said, was to “minimize the risk of executing the innocent” and make sure that capital punishment is used only in the most egregious cases.
“Everyone must recognize that it is the ultimate penalty and one that cannot be undone,” he said. “We must get it right every time.”
"Bar Association: Missouri death penalty needs reform," by Jessica Machetta at MissouriNet. There is video at the link.
A Missouri law panel says crimes punishable by the death penalty are too broad in our state. The American Bar Association report calls for consistency and clarification in state law.
Missouri is the tenth state for which the American Bar Association has released an in-depth analysis — 400 pages worth — of the death penalty. St. Louis Attorney Douglas Copeland was on the panel that has examined the system for two years.
He makes one thing clear — it was not the panel’s function to decide whether there should be a death penalty, or that a moratorium should be implemented.
The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys responded to that by issuing a statement that says, “Missouri’s prosecutors are pleased the ABA did not recommend a moratorium on the death penalty, as they have in many other states. They obviously realize that, while there is always room for improvement, Missouri’s criminal justice system is fundamentally sound.”
The group did identfiy several factors it says leads to possible inconsistencies in sentencing, including mental illness, preservation of DNA evidence and trial court instruction for jurors. Now, prosecutors can argue to a jury that someone should be sentenced to death, the report says. It lists 17 aggravating circumstances that give prosecutors a wide birth for recommending the death penalty.
"Commission finds death penalty unevenly applied in Missouri," by Dick Aldrich at Missouri News; also with video..
The goal of the assessment team was not to support or rally against the state’s current capital punishment law. Rather, panel member Douglas Copeland said the panel’s assignment was to conduct a review of the laws, procedures, and practices by which the death penalty is implemented in Missouri.
“We kind of left our opinions on the death penalty at the door,” said panel spokesman Douglas Copeland, a private practice attorney from St. Louis.
Overall, the committee found that inconsistencies in Missouri’s laws lead to broad interpretations that in turn lead to inconsistent sentencing. University of Missouri Law School professor Paul Litton said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty should be reserved only for the most extreme cases of murder. Litton said the assessment team found 17 aggravating circumstances in Missouri law that trigger the death sentence, with many creating broad categories under which a criminal can receive a death sentence.
“As a result, the aggravating circumstances provide little guidance to prosecutors with respect to sentencing decisions,” said Litton.
Professor Rodney Uphoff of the University of Missouri School of Law said Missouri courts hand out the death sentence in a seemingly arbitrary manner.
“And the problem with that is, in a run of the mill armed robbery that sadly ends in a murder, that young man gets the death sentence, when across the state, somebody who commits a double homicide only gets life, or life without the possibility for parole,” Uphoff said. “We’re not criticizing prosecutors, what we’re saying is when you look at crimes across the state, you shouldn’t have a vastly different sentence for somebody who commits a crime on end of the state and not on the other end of the state.”
The report concludes that the state legislature is going to have to work out a solution to the statutory problems to bring more consistency to the death penalty process in Missouri.
Earlier coverage of the ABA Missouri Assessment Report is at the link.
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