US nears 1,000th execution since 1977

I'm not against punishing criminals. A murderer should be locked away forever, with no possibility of parole.

But the current system is prone to mistakes. We have evidence that we have executed innocent people. Yet we keep killing people to show that killing is wrong.

From the Associated Press via truthout:
-----
"Let's do it." With those last words, convicted killer Gary Gilmore ushered in the modern era of capital punishment in the United States, an age of busy death chambers that will likely see its 1,000th execution in the coming days.

After a 10-year moratorium, Gilmore in 1977 became the first person to be executed following a 1976 US Supreme Court decision that validated state laws to reform the capital punishment system. Since then, 997 prisoners have been executed, and next week, the 998th, 999th and 1,000th are scheduled to die.

Robin Lovitt, 41, will likely be the one to earn that macabre distinction next Wednesday, Nov. 30. He was convicted of fatally stabbing a man with scissors during a 1998 pool hall robbery in Virginia.

Ahead of Lovitt on death row are Eric Nance, scheduled to be executed Monday in Arkansas, and John Hicks, scheduled to be executed Tuesday in Ohio. Both executions appear likely to proceed.

Gilmore was executed before a Utah firing squad, after a record of petty crime, killing of a motel manager and suicide attempts in prison. His life was the basis for Norman Mailer's book "The Executioner's Song" and a TV miniseries.

While his case was well-known, most today could probably not name even one of the more than 3,400 prisoners - including 118 foreign nationals - on death row in the US In the last 28 years, the US has executed on average one person every 10 days.

The focus of the debate on capital punishment was once the question of whether it served as a deterrent to crime. Today, the argument is more on whether the government can be trusted not to execute an innocent person.

Thomas Hill, an attorney for a death row inmate in Ohio who recently won a second stay of execution, thinks the answer is obvious.

"We have a criminal system that makes mistakes. If you accept that proposition, that means you have to be prepared for the inevitability that some are sentenced to death for crimes they didn't commit," said Hill.

[...]

Still, some powerful political forces are looking to speed up the trying and executing of prisoners. Both houses of the US Congress are considering bills that would lessen the ability of defendants in capital cases to appeal to federal courts.

Proponents of the legislation say such appeals add up to 15 years to the process of executing a prisoner. Detractors say the law will not allow federal courts to review most cases and will result in innocent people being put to death.

Since 1973, 122 prisoners have been freed from death row. The vast majority of those cases came during the last 15 years, since the use of DNA evidence became widespread. While there is no official proof an innocent person has been executed, opponents of the death penalty say the number of prisoners whose convictions have been reversed should fuel skepticism.

"I don't think any rational person seriously examining the evidence can have any confidence that an innocent hasn't already been executed," said Scheck.

Using post-conviction DNA evidence, the Innocence Project has helped in more than half of the 163 cases vacated - 14 of which were from death row. "We've demonstrated that there are too many innocent people on death row," Scheck said.
-----
[Read more.]