It's time for Pennsylvania to join these progressive states, and most civilized countries, and do away with the death penalty. It should stop compounding the pain of one crime by possibly putting the wrong person to death.
It's pretty clear the death penalty doesn't act as a deterrent. Murders abound even in the states that conduct the most executions.
Eliminating capital punishment would also save the commonwealth tax dollars, given the cost to maintain a death row and pay for the prolonged legal expenses surrounding the prosecution and appeals process in such cases.
If anything, the lengthy appeals process often revictimizes families as lurid details of cases get debated again and again, often over the course of many years.
But by far the most compelling reason to do away with capital punishment is the growing number of innocent people who have been exonerated thanks to DNA testing.
Such incontrovertible evidence has helped to exonerate almost 270 people who were convicted of crimes that they did not commit, including murder. Among them was an Illinois man who came within 50 hours of execution. He was one of a number of condemned prisoners wrongfully convicted.
In 2000, then-Gov. George Ryan, a Republican, described the Illinois death-penalty system as broken. He declared a moratorium on executions, and commuted the death sentences of more than 100 prisoners.
Quinn, the current governor, studied all sides of the issue and met with the families of murder victims. He concluded that the system of seeking the death penalty was arbitrary from prosecutor to prosecutor, with race and income level figuring as factors.
In Pennsylvania, executions are rare. But more than 200 inmates remain on death row; one of the largest such populations in the country. Six inmates previously on death row in Pennsylvania have been exonerated. The prospect of putting just one innocent person to death is reason enough to end capital punishment.
