NCJ Number
116612
Journal
Stanford Law Review Volume: 41 Issue: 1 Dated: (November 1988) Pages: 121-160
Date Published
1988
Length
40 pages
Annotation
Bedau and Radelet (1987) have published the results of a study purporting to show that the use of capital punishment entails an intolerable risk of mistaken executions and should be abolished.
Abstract
According to these authors, 350 persons have been convicted of capital or potentially capital crimes in the United States during this century; and 23 innocent persons have actually been executed. It is argued in this commentary that these alarming conclusions should not be taken at face value. First, the relevance and validity of the study itself is questionable as it suffers from a number of flaws, the most serious of which are the reliance on material irrelevant to the risk of wrongful execution and the method used to determine innocence. Only about 7 percent of the study deals with cases of allegedly erroneous execution and these cases are from the early part of the century, long before the adoption of extensive safeguards in the administration of the death penalty. Further, the methodology is overly subjective, and case descriptions are one-sided. The argument for abolition of the death penalty put forth by Bedau and Radelet fails because there is no sound reason for believing that the risk of erroneous execution is intolerably high, given the procedural safeguards to reduce the possibility that an error will be committed or, if committed, will go undetected. Further, the authors provide no evidence that any innocent person has been executed since safeguards were adopted or that any innocent person is currently awaiting execution. 227 footnotes.