WP,pg1: More in U.S. Expressing Doubts About Death Penalty

[DeepModem Mom]

More in U.S. Expressing Doubts About Death Penalty
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 2, 2005; Page A01


....The nation's 1,000th execution since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 is scheduled to occur Friday morning, barring a last-minute stay. The expected execution of Kenneth Boyd in North Carolina for murdering his wife and her father comes at a time of growing misgivings over the death penalty, as reflected in jury verdicts, opinion polls and the actions of courts and state legislatures.

Death sentences have declined to their lowest level in three decades, with juries sentencing 125 people to death last year, compared with an average of 290 per year in the 1990s. The number of inmates executed last year was the lowest since 1996, and the Supreme Court has twice in the past three years limited who can be punished with death....

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Public opinion polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty, but that is a significant drop from the peak, in 1994, when 80 percent of respondents told Gallup pollsters they were in favor of capital punishment. When asked if they would endorse executions if the alternative sentence of life without parole were available, support fell to 50 percent.

Amid the refinement of DNA techniques and the sporadic release of inmates from death row because of uncertain guilt, a growing number of people tell pollsters they believe that innocent prisoners have been executed. Although the majority of cases over the past three decades have been upheld, legal errors and sometimes poor defense work revealed during layers of appeals have convinced many Americans that the system is imperfect.

"There's a skepticism about the accuracy of the system and, to some degree, the fairness," said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "It's not quite the ticket to the statehouse if you promise to execute more and more and speed it up. You have religious leaders voicing concerns. You have conservatives. The lines aren't as clear as they were before."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101035.html