FRONT PORCH: Time to reinstate capital punishment?

By Dakota Baker, RealWV

Welcome to our front porch, where we like to discuss what’s going on around the state. Today, we dive into capital punishment.

Capital punishment has been outlawed in West Virginia for decades, but new legislation may change that.

SB 1068, sponsored by Senator Mike Azinger, was introduced Monday Feb. 22nd. This specific bills repeals the death penalty for two specific crimes: First degree murder when the victim is 16 years old or younger and first-degree sexual assault when the victim is 16 years old or younger. For coverage of a similar bill which passed the committee last week, see below:

Are some crimes so henious they merit death? A pastor & senator says yes

Some believe the death penalty violates our Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”.

Others ask whether we have the right to kill when we are operating a flawed justice system that makes mistakes. Bryan Stevenson, American lawyer, and law professor at New York University School of Law, stated in an interview, “I don’t think the question of capital punishment in this country can be answered by asking: Do people deserve to die for the crimes they’ve committed? I think the threshold question is: Do we deserve to kill?”

It boils down to the high rate of errors in the justice system during prosecutions. For example, 200 people have been exonerated and released from death row since 1973, meaning individuals who were convicted of a crime were later found innocent. Some of these individuals spent decades on death row before being exonerated. To put that into perspective, for every 10 people executed in the U.S., at least one has been later identified as innocent and released.

SB 1068 and SB 1037 require unanimous agreement from the jury, circumstances must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and physical evidence such as forensic DNA evidence or an uncoerced confession are required. However, this process may not be as cut and dry as legislators are making it out to be. Forensic evidence already plays a crucial role in homicide and sexual assault convictions and is not always accurate. Those inaccurate forensics have led to false convictions in the past.

The story of Fred Zain is a cautionary tale in West Virginia, as he was found to have lied about his credentials and fabricated evidence against hundreds of accused criminals during his tenure at the WV State Police Crime Lab. To read more, see below:

https://wvinnocenceproject.law.wvu.edu/about-us/west-virginia

Currently, The National Registry of Exonerations keeps a record of the total years lost by people exonerated since 1989, currently that total is 27,200+ years.