Pennsylvania's Death Penalty: 

 the facts demand its abolition 

     On October 14 a Morning Call editorial urged Pennsylvania to listen to American Bar Association warnings that the administration of the death penalty in PA was unjust and seriously flawed by racial and class bias and lack of adequate legal representation for defendants. 

     Citizens, in whose name the state performs executions, need to question why most district attorneys and politicians remain resistant to supporting standards of criminal procedure that would lessen the chance someone could wrongly end up on death row whether because of skin color, economic background or even actual innocence. As the editorial points out, the ABA issued a warning regarding PA's death penalty system in 1997 that wasn't heeded. In 2003 a committeee appointed by the PA Supreme Court concluded that the administration of the death penalty in PA was racially and class biased to a degree that in some areas (think Philly) rose to the level of "overwhelming." That Supreme Court Committee recommended that Governor Rendell or the Legislature impose a moratorium and also urged the Legislature to pass a Racial Justice Act. 

     The Governor and the legislators responded by doing absolutely nothing. So disturbing statistics have continued to grow. PA now has the largest minority population on its death row of any state in the nation. More than 90% of the people on PA's death row could not afford an attorney at their inital trial. Is the brand of justice producing these outcomes really acceptable to the citizens of PA? Of course, the issue that presents the most disturbing problem in our continuing use of the death penalty as justice is the possibility of executing an innocent person. 

     Pennsylvania so far has freed six innocent people from its death row. This is not a sign that the system is working. These people ended up on death row because of things like inadequate legal representation, prosecutorial misconduct, witness intimidation, police misconduct, coerced confessions. And they were freed not with the help of the criminal justice system in Pennsylvania but in spite of it by family, friends, lawyers and advocates who had to fight the system every step of the way. 

     The MCALL editorial put the problem of innocence succinctly: "In short, nobody in Pennsylvania can guarantee that an innocent person will never be executed." Exactly right. Do the majority of PA citizens support the reality that executing an innocent person is an acceptable price to pay for clinging to our use of the death penalty? Let's hope not - that would certainly have nothing to do with justice and fairness. And if not, then abolition is the answer, not new standards or a moratorium. 

     I hope that the MCALL will consider following its own logic and call for abolition of the death penalty. This is a measure that is being seriously considered or is already in place in a number of our neighboring states. 

     Those wishing to be active locally against the death penalty are welcome to join LEPOCO's Lehigh Valley Committee Against Killing or Amnesty International Group 347.   -Maria Weick