Container Top
Homes   Jobs   Cars   Shopping
Search

Events Calendar

EVENT SEARCH:

In This Section


Most Read Stories


Blogs:


Pets:
Cat-loving chihuahua suckles seven abandoned kittens

The Heldenfiles:
Friday Night Notebook

Patrick McManamon:
Browns vs. Lions live …

Akron Zips:
Hitchens leads Zips in second-half comeback

Tribe Matters:
Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster

Cleveland Browns:
Robiskie, Harrison inactive

Kent State Sports:
Kent State blown out in second half, loses to Temple 47-13

Cleveland Cavaliers:
Gameblog: Cavs vs. Philadelphia 76ers

Buckeye Blogging:
OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad

Varsity Letters:
Four area football teams play tonight

All Da King's Men:
The Sunday Sanity Challenge

Blog of Mass Destruction:
Will Health Care Reform Pass?

Akron Law Café:
Health Care Financing Reform: (69) The Brookings Institute Study on "Bending the Curve" – Four General Strategies

See Jane Style:
Vintage Chic

Car Chase:
TIME TO GET YOUR COLLECTOR CARS WINTERIZED

Let's Talk Real Estate:
Silverdome Potentially SOLD!

Ohio Travels with Betty:
George is looking for a Thanksgiving buffet in Akron.

Sound Check:
Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall

HRLite House:
A Random Rant on Testing

Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go

Why suspend the death penalty?

The problem of mistaken eyewitnesses and false confessions

 

Ohioans may be surprised to learn that the two leading causes of wrongful convictions are false confessions and eyewitnesses mistakenly identifying defendants. The American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project shared this observation in its recent assessment of capital punishment in Ohio. It was part of why the project urged the state to reduce the potential for such errors, taking steps to diminish the risk of sending an innocent man or woman to death row.

As it is, the bar evaluation rightly called for Gov. Ted Strickland to suspend capital punishment in the state until further assessment and action allows for improved public confidence in the system.

What can be done?

The bar report gives Ohio credit for already moving in the right direction. Law enforcement officers must complete many hours of precise training that includes work on interrogations and lineups. The courts may admit expert testimony involving the reliability of eyewitness identifications. Roughly two dozen law enforcement agencies in the state ''regularly record some or all'' interrogations, providing a critical check against coerced or false confessions.

The objective should be to build on such efforts. The bar report recommends that the state require all law enforcement agencies to adopt procedures covering identifications and interrogations. That isn't the case now. As part of such procedures, law enforcement agencies should record via videotape all interrogations in homicide cases at police offices, courthouses, detention centers and the like. It isn't expensive. The technology is easy to handle. (Even an audio recording improves the process.)

Similarly, the bar report recommended that the state mandate lineup procedures, ensuring the use of best practices from across the country.

These are relatively simple steps to improve the process of the death penalty. Again, they are not designed to make things easier for the accused. They serve the interests of all Ohioans. They provide an element of protection against an irreversible error, executing an innocent person. The governor should not allow the machinery of capital punishment to grind further without moving ahead on this front.

This is the third in a set of editorials on why Ohio should suspend its death penalty.

 

Ohioans may be surprised to learn that the two leading causes of wrongful convictions are false confessions and eyewitnesses mistakenly identifying defendants. The American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project shared this observation in its recent assessment of capital punishment in Ohio. It was part of why the project urged the state to reduce the potential for such errors, taking steps to diminish the risk of sending an innocent man or woman to death row.

As it is, the bar evaluation rightly called for Gov. Ted Strickland to suspend capital punishment in the state until further assessment and action allows for improved public confidence in the system.

What can be done?

The bar report gives Ohio credit for already moving in the right direction. Law enforcement officers must complete many hours of precise training that includes work on interrogations and lineups. The courts may admit expert testimony involving the reliability of eyewitness identifications. Roughly two dozen law enforcement agencies in the state ''regularly record some or all'' interrogations, providing a critical check against coerced or false confessions.

The objective should be to build on such efforts. The bar report recommends that the state require all law enforcement agencies to adopt procedures covering identifications and interrogations. That isn't the case now. As part of such procedures, law enforcement agencies should record via videotape all interrogations in homicide cases at police offices, courthouses, detention centers and the like. It isn't expensive. The technology is easy to handle. (Even an audio recording improves the process.)

Similarly, the bar report recommended that the state mandate lineup procedures, ensuring the use of best practices from across the country.

These are relatively simple steps to improve the process of the death penalty. Again, they are not designed to make things easier for the accused. They serve the interests of all Ohioans. They provide an element of protection against an irreversible error, executing an innocent person. The governor should not allow the machinery of capital punishment to grind further without moving ahead on this front.

This is the third in a set of editorials on why Ohio should suspend its death penalty.



Story tools

Email  Email   Print  Print   Save  Save   Reprint  Reprint   Popular  Most Popular   Reprint  Subscribe

Share this story

AddThis Social Bookmark Button
















Most Commented Stories