I was countering the idea that without the death penalty prison population would surge. There’s not enough people on death row being executed to meaningfully effect overall prison population.

If you meant that without the death penalty prosecutors and judges would be more inclined to push harsher and longer prison sentences, then I just misinterpreted your original statement.

I can think of a few killers about whom there is absolutely no doubt about their guilt, and their horrific stories are a primary reason why Texas will never get rid of the death penalty (fwiw, I think we should get rid of it even for the worst cases if for no other reason than it’s a total pain in the ass). But investigations like these and reporting on death penalty flaws may educate Texas jurors on the kinds of evidentiary problems that make the death penalty inappropriate in many of the cases in which it is sought. Who knows, one day it might even get through to the prosecutors.

There is actually not that many people on death row in the states. There are about 3200 inmates on death row. Out of about 2 million prisoners in a country with a population of 400 million.

How is that “not many”?

Agree with the rest of your post completely.

I can only imagine that the statement is statistically ignorant by design. No doubt Scalia can easily maintain his sense of doubt in this case as well.

There is actually not that many people on death row in the states. There are about 3200 inmates on death row. Out of about 2 million prisoners in a country with a population of 400 million.

Personally I think the powers that be don’t want to get rid of the death penalty for another reason. If all those law and non-profit organizations stop focusing so much on trying to get people off death row they might start dedicating resources to finding out how many of the other 2 million prisoners are innocent.

The Innocence Project estimates that about 10% of death row inmates are innocent just based on the ones they’ve been able to prove from DNA. Given that death penalty cases generally have much higher standards of evidence than non-death penalty cases, its highly likely that the general prison population has a much higher rate of innocents incarcerated.

The death penalty is a fringe issue that the media can be easily distracted with. It’s something politicians can have meaningless debates over while total ignoring the monumental flaws present in the rest of the justice system.

An exhaustive investigation from Columbia Law School is not forthcoming.

Reminds me of the boiler plate “…meanwhile Radley doesn’t investigate Koch brothers yada yada…”

Obama ordered drone strikes which led to the deaths of dozens of people, including “collateral damage,” i.e. innocent victims. This is accepted as fact by all concerned.

The Joker already explained that this was all according to plan, so no one cares.

“there are so many checks and balances in the system that an innocent man would never be executed.”

Their narrative is quickly changing to “you gotta break some eggs to keep ‘Murica safe”. They don’t change their position. They just slightly shift their weight. Much better for them than the alternative.

If you outlaw the death penalty, my bet is that the prison population will grow rapidly from even it’s bloated levels today. The state needs the Hammer and Colosseum.

An exhaustive investigation from Columbia Law School is not forthcoming.

vs.

#9: http://www.law.columbia.edu/human-rights-institute/initiatives/counterterrorism/targetedkilling

Ouch.

Agreed. The one important counter to that point, though, is that there’s always the chance that an innocent person with a life sentence could eventually be exonerated.

However, many innocents in the Middle East already have and many Americans may in the future when someone decides to ‘avenge’ the former upon the latter. Of course, that ‘someone’ will be described as a “ruthless terrorist”.

Unless, of course, you look at it from the point of view that the Police’s job is to grab the first guy that comes along and twist the evidence to fit… ignoring obvious leads to the contrary.