Opinion Roundup

Today's Orlando Sentinel carries the editorial, "Commission can reduce wrongful convictions with legislative support."

Sprinkled throughout the U.S. Constitution is the notion that accused criminals are to be treated fairly and justly.

A high ideal in theory, but too often dogged by judicial breakdowns in practice. When that happens, the system locks up someone like James Bain. He received a life sentence for the 1974 rape of a 9-year-old Lake Wales boy. Only he didn't do the crime. After serving 35 years, Mr. Bain finally tasted freedom in December after DNA testing exonerated him.

Tragically, Mr. Bain's plight isn't uncommon in Florida. At long last, however, it appears the state intends to do more to prevent such miscarriages of justice than simply hoping truth will win the day. Armed with $200,000 in legislative start-up money, the state Supreme Court appears poised to create an innocence commission to examine wrongful convictions and recommend reforms.

It's a badly needed backstop, given that largely because of DNA evidence, 11 people who wrongly were robbed of their liberty were exonerated in recent years. Still, the commission's effectiveness depends on legislators' commitment to funding and to adopting its recommendations.

The push for a state innocence commission came in December from a group of lawyers and former state Supreme Court justices. Echoing a 2006 report by the American Bar Association's Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team, they petitioned the state Supreme Court to establish a panel modeled after a court-ordered commission of legal experts, police and victim advocates in North Carolina.

And:

Florida has a long history of state-sanctioned commissions making recommendations that go nowhere. Given the Innocence Project of Florida reports that DNA testing has exonerated 248 U.S. citizens — including 17 on death row — since 1992, the Legislature cannot let any viable reforms that come from the commission collect dust.

"This too shall eventually pass," is the title of an editorial in Arkansas' Clay County Democrat.

Most all the executions in the world last year occurred in only four nations -- China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. China had by far the most executions, although no official number is reported -- it no doubt is in the thousands. The United States ranked fifth in the world with 52, behind China, Iran 388, Iraq 120 and Saudi Arabia 69.

The number of executions in the United States went up in 2010 from 37 in 2008 and 42 in 2007. Almost half of the executions in this country in 2010, a total of 24, occurred in Texas.

As Newsweek writer Anna Quindlen said of the capital punishment totals worldwide, "you are known by the company you keep."

During the last three decades, the number of nations outlawing the death penalty has risen from 16 to 137. No European nation still retains the death penalty.

There are so many reasons to be opposed to the death penalty but, in our view, none is as compelling as to compare the list of nations that keep it to those who don't.

Cecil Bothwell writes, "Time for state to end executions for mentally ill," for the Asheville Citizen-Times about legislation being considered in North Carolina. Bothwell is a member of the Asheville City Council.

We can urge North Carolina legislators to pass House Bill 137 and Senate Bill 309, an act which would take the death penalty off the table for people with severe mental illnesses or disabilities.

It's perfectly clear that people suffering from such debilities have no understanding of their actions, much less potential repercussions.

If the purpose of our penal system is to discourage criminal behavior, that purpose cannot be served by threatening execution of those who can't connect cause and effect, who imagine themselves to be immortal, who believe they are acting on directions from God or aliens, who entertain bizarre paranoid fantasies or who experience a wide range of other psychotic derangements.

A humane society should be able to pass a law that serves justice, removes murderers from society, but recognizes that they were not acting with their full faculties.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan writes, "Life term shouldn't end murder story."

Brian Walters came to court on his 30th birthday Tuesday to plead guilty to the rape and murder of Nancy Miller in 2008. He received a life sentence, which could be considered a present of sorts because St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch had earlier announced his intention to seek the death penalty, and McCulloch is not normally a man who changes his mind about these things.

He changed his mind in this case after the victim's family agreed to a life sentence — a decision I believe Miller would have endorsed — and because of the role that Walters' mother played in the investigation. She brought her son to the crime scene, and then she urged him to confess.

The column details Walter's plea for assistance and counseling.

The story begged for a response. Why had the Department of Corrections not offered Walters the treatment he himself had said he needed? Why had the 2003 report been completely ignored?

The Missouri Legislature announced that its Joint Committee on Corrections would look into the affair. The hearings were a farce. The legislators were absolutely sympathetic with DOC Director Larry Crawford. "I hate that this happened, but I think you guys did the best that you could," said Rep. Van Kelly, R-Norwood.

Nobody mentioned that Missouri statutes say, "The director shall have education, training and experience in correctional management." Crawford was a high school graduate with no experience or training in correctional management. He was a former legislator who been appointed to the job when he was term-limited out of office in 2005. No wonder the legislators were so gentle.

It was no better when a real corrections professional appeared. Steve Long, who was then chairman of the Board of Probation and Parole, said all this was so confidential that he could not even confirm or deny that Walters ever had the conversations with the counselor and parole officer.

So that was that. Nobody ever found out why the report was ignored, which means we don't know if the problems have been corrected, which means we can't be sure a similar thing won't happen again — that the DOC will release another human time bomb, ready to explode, into the community.

Nancy Miller was a kind person, and I believe she would have approved of McCulloch's decision to forgo the death penalty. But she was also a reporter, and I'm convinced she would say that Tuesday's sentencing should not be the end of this particular story.

Earlier coverage on the Florida innocence commission and North Carolina legislation is at the line.