The Robesonian of Lumberton, North Carolina publishes the editorial, "No margin for error with the death penalty."
There are a lot of reasons to oppose the death penalty.
In no particular order, here are ours:
And:
And the most obvious, which we are reminded of as new evidence surfaces that suggests Henry Lee McCollom is not guilty of the rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie in 1983, and that Leon Brown did not rape the child. The Robesonian broke this news story, which we think will continue to grow, on Tuesday and more details are in today’s newspaper. We are content to follow the facts in this case, but it seems now there is reasonable doubt to the guilt of both men.
But both McCollom and Brown in 1984 were sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Buie. The murder conviction against Brown was later overturned as a second trial determined he did not help murder Buie, and he is now in Central Prison serving life; McCollom remains on death row, spared now by a 7-year-old moratorium on executions in North Carolina that was put into effect because of concerns about how it was administered.
NC Policy Watch posts, "Still think we should be executing people? NC to free another wrongfully convicted person after 20 years," by Rob Schofield.
In case you missed it, North Carolina is about to release yet another person who spent two decades in state prison for crimes he did not commit — thus further highlighting the absurdity of the death penalty in the 21st Century.
There is more on the non-capital case of Michael Parker at the Asheville Citizen-Times in, "Judge orders Henderson County man freed after 20 years."
Earlier coverage from North Carolina begins at the link. There is a moratorium on executions in North Carolina due to lethal injection issues.
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