Death Penalty Will Always Put Innocent Lives at Risk

That's the title of an OpEd in Annapolis's The Capital by Sam Millsap.  LINK  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

In recommending an end to the state's death penalty, the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment overwhelmingly supported a critical finding: Maryland's death penalty system carries a real risk of executing an innocent person.

At the risk of being called a carpetbagger, I want to address this issue from Texas, the execution capital of the free world, and echo the commission's findings that the risk is real - even in Maryland.

I am no wild-eyed, pointy-headed liberal from some out of the way backwash. I am the former elected district attorney in San Antonio, Texas, the seventh-largest city in America, and was, until a few years ago, a strong supporter of the death penalty.

As Bexar County district attorney, I was responsible for the prosecution of several capital murder cases, each of which resulted in the conviction and execution of the defendant. In 2005, the Houston Chronicle, in a remarkable piece of investigative journalism that has complicated my life immeasurably, argued persuasively that one of my prosecutions - the Ruben Cantu case - may have resulted in the execution of an innocent man.

I fervently hope that there are only a few current and former prosecutors in America today who find themselves, as I do, in the position of having to admit an error in judgment that may have led to the execution of an innocent man.

Millsap is also a member of the Constitution Project's Death Penalty Initiative.  Earlier coverage of the Ruben Cantu case is here; the Cantu category index includes other news of Millsap.