Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks must-read latest is, "Death penalty fails on fairness."
Some death penalty opponents believe they must win the argument on moral grounds - that they have to convince the Maryland General Assembly, for instance, that capital punishment should be abolished because it's just morally wrong. For many Americans, it's the only argument necessary and the only one they offer, and they do so with the stridency approaching that of religious belief.
While I appreciate the poetry of the moralizing abolitionists, and admit to having been in their ranks at one time, I realize that the moral argument doesn't work with everyone. Citizens of a society ruled by law - even one that has sent 124 innocent defendants to Death Row during the past 30 years, according to a count kept by the American Civil Liberties Union - need more than that.
And:
It's a deeply emotional issue, challenging the best and brightest thinkers among us to remain objective and rational.
One such American, who reflected long and hard on the question, is the acclaimed suspense novelist Scott Turow, visiting Annapolis this week to explain to the legislature how he went from death penalty agnostic to death penalty opponent.
Turow does not bring a set of religious beliefs to the debate, and he eschews what he calls the usual "liberal pieties." He takes a clinical approach to the whole matter. He had to, having been appointed to the Illinois governor's commission on the death penalty seven years ago.
And:
It's a deeply emotional issue, challenging the best and brightest thinkers among us to remain objective and rational.
One such American, who reflected long and hard on the question, is the acclaimed suspense novelist Scott Turow, visiting Annapolis this week to explain to the legislature how he went from death penalty agnostic to death penalty opponent.
Turow does not bring a set of religious beliefs to the debate, and he eschews what he calls the usual "liberal pieties." He takes a clinical approach to the whole matter. He had to, having been appointed to the Illinois governor's commission on the death penalty seven years ago.
And:
"If my time on the commission taught me one lesson," Turow writes, "it was that I was approaching the question of capital punishment the wrong way. There will always be cases that cry out to me for ultimate punishment. That is not the true issue. The pivotal question instead is whether a system of justice can be constructed that reaches only the rare, right cases, without also occasionally condemning the innocent or the undeserving."
The death penalty might represent an American idea of justice; it might be a grand symbol of our moral instincts, Turow says. But it is also fraught with many inequities and shortcomings that we don't seem to be able to fix or resolve, that persist despite efforts at reform and long, tedious appeals. "You are four times more likely to get a death sentence in a rural area as an urban one," Turow said the other day. "Whether you receive a death sentence depends on whether you kill in an affluent area or a poor one."
The Baltimore Examiner also covered Turow's speech with, "Prosecutor-turned author blasts death penalty."
Best-selling author Scott Turow, a lawyer, who explores the criminal justice system in fiction, was in the State House halls Wednesday, not to hawk a new book, but to talk about his own evolution into an opponent of the death penalty.
“Because of my experience as a prosecutor, I thought [the death penalty] was an ugly necessity,” Turow told The Examiner. “I knew if I was called to stand in front of a jury and ask for the death penalty, I was certainly ready to do that.”
“I used to refer to myself as a death penalty agnostic,” but then he represented “a truly innocent man that had clearly been railroaded” and sentenced to death.
Turow’s thinking also changed as he served on the Illinois governor’s commission to examine the death penalty and got to interview a number of the murderers on death row.
His experience on the commission “taught me that I had been asking the wrong question” – not is the death penalty “moral or right” but “will you ever be able to construct a legal system that reaches only the right cases, without sweeping in the wrong cases?”
“ My conclusion is that you’ll never be able to do that – it’s too great a challenge for the law,” Turow said.
“Americans want to believe that certain acts are so bestial, so extreme” that they want to “make a clear moral statement that we condemn this behavior. But the problem with the capital system is that it does not make clear moral statements.”
“It’s riddled with inequities and fallacies,” Turow said. “You can actually convict a innocent person with barely any evidence.”
Turow's book, The Ultimate Punishment, is available in the Books section of the right-hand column.
One other note from Maryland. Yesterday Governor Martin O'Malley gave his state of the state speech. The Baltimore Sun has, "Governor presents a modest wish list."
Gov. Martin O'Malley laid out a modest legislative agenda yesterday in his second State of the State address, urging lawmakers to help him fight violent crime, protect homeowners from foreclosure, ease the state's energy woes and protect the Chesapeake Bay.
The 29-minute speech to a joint session of the General Assembly and invited dignitaries in the House of Delegates chamber included no proposals for sweeping, big-ticket programs, nor did it stake out positions on hot-button issues that lawmakers are likely to face, such as the death penalty or gay marriage - though the governor did signal a willingness to tangle with powerful utilities over soaring electricity rates.
Earlier coverage of issues in Maryland is here , here, and here.
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