Excerpt from: New York Times (click for full article)
The movement to end the death penalty has garnered more support from politicians and the public as it has shifted from moral condemnation of capital punishment to a more practical argument: that mistakes by witnesses and the police inevitably mean that innocent people will be executed. While DNA gets the limelight, of 142 prisoners sentenced to death and then exonerated in the last 40 years, just 18 were freed over DNA evidence, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.
Use of the death penalty has been steadily declining, and 17 states no longer have it on the books, with 5 of them abolishing it since 2007, said Richard C. Dieter, the center’s executive director. Executions dropped to 43 last year from 98 in 1999.
“These innocence cases are the biggest single factor, because it has spread doubt throughout the system,” Mr. Dieter said.
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