DATE=04/16/02

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=U-S/ DEATH PENALTY

NUMBER=6-125636

BYLINE=JOHN GUCHEMAND

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

CONTENT=

INTRO: Recently, the United States' death penalty has been under review. Gov. George Ryan two years ago placed a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois. Evidently, this revision of the U-S's death penalty is not only an fascinating topic in the state of Illinois.

Here with a sampling of U-S editorial comment is V-O-A's __________.

TEXT: The Washington Post reports on the death penalty in Illinois.

VOICE: Illinois, since reinstating capital punishment in 1977, had executed 12 people, while it had been forced to release 13 who were under sentence of death. Investigations by journalism students at Northwestern University and by the Chicago Tribune had revealed pervasive flaws in the state's capital punishment system.

...The commission's report contains numerous recommendations, mostly sound and mostly unsurprising. They include -- among others -- videotaping interrogations, making fewer crimes eligible for the death penalty, asking a state board to review local prosecutors' decisions to seek the death penalty, requiring judges to concur in death decisions by juries, and reining in the use of uncorroborated testimony by informants and eyewitnesses. If enacted, such changes would significantly reduce the scope and randomness of capital punishment and significantly lower the risk of wrongful convictions and executions.

...Though it was not the focus of the commission's work, a majority of the commission's members favored abolishing capital punishment entirely: "because of moral concerns, because of a conclusion that no system can or will be constructed which sufficiently guarantees that the death penalty will be applied without arbitrariness or error, or because of a determination that the social resources expended on capital punishment outrun its benefits."

TEXT: The U-S-A Today presents a solution to the problems inherent in the U-S-A's death penalty.

VOICE: On Monday, a special state commission set up in response to this appalling record of injustice issued a report calling for overhauling a system it found flawed at all levels.

The commission, which included both defenders and critics of capital punishment, acknowledged the dreadful truth about the death penalty: even with the best safeguards, innocent people may be executed.

An analysis accompanying the commission's report found that of 275 death-penalty cases in Illinois since 1977, sentences were reversed in more than half because of trial-court errors and mistakes by prosecutors and defense lawyers.

The report also provides more evidence of how unevenly the death penalty is applied. For instance, murderers were notably more likely to get the death penalty if their victims were white, female, children or senior citizens.

The problems with capital punishment extend beyond Illinois. Of the 38 states with the death penalty, 24 have had to admit mistakes and release people from death row -- 100 such cases nationally.

...There is an alternative that meets Ryan's standard: life sentences with no possibility of parole.

Based on the crime rates in states aggressively applying capital punishment and those that do not, the death penalty is no deterrent. In spite of the costs of incarceration, life without parole is often cheaper than the costs of litigating death sentences. And the cost of taking an innocent life is incalculable.

TEXT: In conclusion, the Christian Science Monitor supports this revision of the United States' death penalty.

VOICE: Finally.

Mounting evidence of errors has led a bipartisan commission in Illinois to conclude: "no system, given human nature and frailties, could ever be devised or constructed that would work perfectly and guarantee absolutely that no innocent person is ever again sentenced to death."

That risk alone should be reason enough to abolish the death penalty.

After 13 inmates on death row were exonerated in Illinois over the past 10 years, Gov. George Ryan courageously placed a moratorium on the death penalty in the state two years ago and set up the commission. It studied all death-penalty cases in Illinois since capital punishment was reinstated in the state in 1977.

...The 37 other states that still invoke the death penalty should give this report a close read and reconsider their own capital-punishment laws. This should advance the national debate, and help win over those who see death as an answer to criminal behavior.

TEXT: And that concludes today's sampling of U-S newspaper editorial pages.

NEB/TG/RH/SAB