GIST: "Passages of last week’s Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty read more like a pharmacology treatise than new constitutional guidance on how executions may be carried out... The question of whether there should be capital punishment in the first place was not at issue, but it cast a long shadow. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote yes, the Constitution specifically “contemplates” the punishment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote no, in a detailed dissenting opinion complete with charts and graphs. This newspaper — an opponent of capital punishment since 2007 — agrees with Breyer’s assessment that it’s time for the court to address the core constitutional question “rather than try to patch up the death penalty’s legal wounds one at a time.” Breyer’s arguments should resonate in Texas, especially the parts about the unreliability of the justice system. Texas, the leading state in executions, is also the leader in DNA-proven wrongful convictions. Breyer cited two Texas cases — Cameron Todd Willingham of Corsicana and Carlos DeLuna of Corpus Christi — in saying that convincing evidence exists that innocent men have been executed. He named former Texas death row inmate Anthony Graves in a list of exonerations. Has a shaken confidence in the sureness of justice caused Texas to lose its appetite for lethal punishment? Halfway through 2015, none of Texas’ 254 counties has imposed a death sentence. As Breyer pointed out, the death penalty is used in dwindling numbers and in a dwindling number of states. The constitutional question becomes: Has executing people become an “unusual” punishment by modern standards? The court should address this and other questions head-on.........Forty-three years ago, a fragmented Supreme Court was so troubled by the use of capital punishment that it effectively imposed a moratorium that lasted four years. Today, the same core issues persist and will fester until the court agrees to take on the big question once again."
The entire editorial can be found at:
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