American Bar Association Recommends Halting Death Penalty
Nov 6th, 2007 by nick
The American Bar Association recently released the results of a three-year study on the death penalty and recommends a nationwide moratorium. The study found numerous problems, including “significant racial disparities in imposing the death penalty,” incidents of serious mistakes or fraud with evidence, and lack of requirements to preserve the evidence throughout the legal process.
While I’m pleased to see any movement against the death penalty, I’m afraid the ABA’s report may not help abolish the death penalty in the long run. The ABA implies that the problem with the death penalty is merely procedural. That is, if it were only implemented correctly, without racial discrimination, with proper evidence rules, etc., it would be fine. In reality, the problems with the death penalty are much more fundamental: It’s simply morally wrong for our justice system to murder people, however guilty of whatever crimes we determine them to be. No amount of tinkering with the procedure can obviate its intrinsic immorality.