- 13.03.01

Death Penalty Reform

The fight to reform the nation's flawed and uneven death penaltysystem resumed in Congress last week with the introduction of abill aimed at reducing the risk of executing innocent people. Thebipartisan Innocence Protection Act of 2001 would address theproblem of incompetent lawyering in death penalty cases byestablishing new national standards for the representation ofcapital defendants, and by providing resources to help meet them.It would also require the preservation of biological evidence - forexample, hair fibers - that could later prove crucial to an appeal,and guarantee federal and state death-row inmates access to DNAtesting if that could help exonerate them. Sponsored by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers led by SenatorsPatrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Gordon Smith, Republican ofOregon, and by Representatives Bill Delahunt, Democrat ofMassachusetts, and Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois, the bill haspicked up significant support in the year since a similar bill wasintroduced. On the House side, most notably, the legislation nowboasts 140 Democratic and Republican co-sponsors. That total,nearly a third of the entire House, reflects the addition of about60 new House sponsors, and the growing consensus across the countrythat the present death penalty system is badly broken.The bill is a special test for President Bush. Mr. Bush haspreviously expressed general support for the bill's goal ofencouraging greater use of DNA evidence to prevent mistakes incapital cases. But as governor of Texas, even while his state wasperforming a record number of executions, he showed little interestin the measure's other core goal of ensuring that capitaldefendants everywhere receive competent legal counsel. Perhaps hewill view things differently from the White House.