Editorial -  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

USA: Death again / How to end quibbling about capital punishment

The Supreme Court of the United States doesn't spend all of its time dealing with challenges to death sentences; it just seems that way. And for good reason. Since its 1976 ruling ending a 4-year constitutional moratorium on capital punishment, the high court has struggled with questions about when a particular use of the death penalty violates due process or the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishments."

The permutations seem endless: Can murderers be executed for a crime they committed when they were minors? What about mentally retarded defendants? Is the Constitution offended when juries have too much leeway in deciding on the ultimate penalty -- or too little?

Meanwhile, even as the pace of executions has increased, death rows remain clogged with prisoners who are exhausting every appeal. And a public told that "death means death" understandably grows cynical.

This month the Supreme Court has ruled -- again -- that a death sentence is invalid if the jury isn't told whether "life means life" -- that is, whether a sentence of life imprisonment includes the possibility of parole or early release.

In a South Carolina case that has been before the court three times, the court reiterated 5-4 that juries must be fully apprised of the consequences of a life sentence. Like Pennsylvania, South Carolina had not mandated full disclosure; legislators are now scrambling to amend the law to bring it into conformity with the court's decision.

But that doesn't mean the court can relax. A few days after its decision in the South Carolina case, it agreed to hear a challenge to the practice in nine states of having judges rather than juries decide on death sentences.

The problem, as we have observed before, is not that this or that injustice in the imposition of the death penalty needs to be rectified. The real problem illustrated by the endless churning of litigation is that the court system, reflecting we believe ambivalence in the population at large, is uncomfortable with the routine execution even of murderers. So it probes death sentences with a legal fine-tooth comb -- and often finds legal nits. That in turn encourages other convicted murderers to file appeals.

Delays in implementing the death penalty outrage citizens who tell pollsters that they support "the" death penalty. The problem is that no 2 death sentences are alike, and in trying to ensure against miscarriages of justice the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly -- and often grind to a halt. And, in their hearts, many Americans wouldn't have it any other way.

The remedy is not to move executions along faster. The clean way out of this dilemma is to abolish the death penalty, replacing it in the most heinous cases with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

It is relatively easy to ensure that "life means life"; but as long as the Supreme Court does its job, it will be impossible to say "death means death."