even when they support the death penalty system. "Wherever the death penalty is in place, it siphons off resources which could be going to the front line in the war against crime…. Politicians could address this crisis, but, for the most part they either endorse executions or remain silent."62 The only way to make the death penalty more "cost effective" than imprisonment is to weaken due process and curtail appellate review, which are the defendant's (and society's) only protection against the most aberrant miscarriages of justice. Any savings in dollars would, of course, be at the cost of justice: In nearly half of the death-penalty cases given review under federal habeas corpus provisions, the murder conviction or death sentence was overturned.63 In 1996, in response to public clamor for accelerating executions, Congress imposed severe restrictions on access to federal habeas corpus64 and also ended all funding of the regional death penalty "resource centers" charged with providing counsel on appeal in the federal courts.65 These restrictions virtually guarantee that the number and variety of wrongful murder convictions and death sentences will increase. The savings in time and money will prove to be illusory.CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS IRREVERSIBLEUnlike all other criminal punishments, the death penalty is irrevocable. Speaking to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1830, years after having witnessed the excesses of the French Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette said, "I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me."37 Although some proponents of capital punishment would argue that its merits are worth the occasional execution of innocent people, most would hasten to insist that there is little likelihood of the innocent being executed. However, a large body of evidence from the 1980s and 1990s shows that innocent people are often convicted of crimes –...
