Issodhos wrote:
>      Actually, it seems that the only thing Cohen has 'proven' is that the
> system works.  He provides example after example of probable
> innocent persons
> being released while showing no evidence of an innocent person
> being executed
> since the reestablishment of the death penalty.  Does anyone know of any
> instance since the reestablishment of the death penalty in which
> the person
> executed was later shown to not be a murderer?

This from today's Slate:

Speaking of unsavory human rights records ... A NYT front piece
announces "Florida Passes Bill to Quicken Execution Pace." Gov. Jeb
Bush proposed and pushed through the bill, modeled on a 1995 Texas
law his brother, Texas governor and presidential hopeful George W.,
proposed and pushed through. GWB has overseen the executions of 111
men and one woman. (By the way, the <a
href="http://www.aclu.org/news/1999/n102799b.html">ACLU claims</a>
that there have been 581 US executions since the Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty in 1976. So GWB has been responsible
for almost 1/5 the total.) The Florida law will "shorten the length
between sentencing and execution to 5 years" from the current
average of 14. The US Supreme Court plans to "review Florida's use
of the electric chair" because the state has botched a number of
executions. Unfortunately, it's not until almost the end of the
piece that we learn "87 people on death row in the United States
have been found to be wrongly convicted, and released [since 1973].
The average time those inmates spent on death row was seven and a
half years...." Not 5. The piece does not say, though it should,
how much it costs to execute, or to house per year, someone on
death row. The LAT doesn't have this important story; the Post only
has a graph on it halfway through its "Nation In Brief" section.

bruce sandford
Hamilton 2001
Aotearoa - New Zealand

ICQ: 20816964