Observer Editorial: Death penalty needs addressed... and soon.

Over the course of the past month, legislators have been going back-and-forth on the future of the death penalty in the state of Nebraska - only to see debate quashed by a filibuster led by supporters of capital punsishment.

Those seeking to end the death penalty point to several claims: mainly, it’s too expensive and it’s inhumane.

Supporters of it say that the criminals had their chance, and that the crimes they committed justify what some call an extreme sentence.

In all, 32 states - including Nebraska - still have some form of capital punishment as legal sentence in federal civilian courts and military courts.

The United States is one of the only developed nations in the world still to employ what many around the world consider to be a barbarian punishment. Others that employ the death penalty include Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, China and Japan.

If the United States is going to be a world leader, there are several courses of action that could be adopted.

First, and perhaps most obviously, the United States could end the death penalty as a manner of legal sentencing.

Several law experts question the pure legality of the death penalty under the guise of the Eighth Amendment, which states “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Many believe that one scarcely find a punishment more abrupt and cruel than death, but others believe this is not the case.

That being said, it doesn’t appear that the death penalty is going anywhere anytime soon. One of the last Supreme Court decisions on the matter came in 2008 in the case Kennedy v. Louisiana, when the court ruled that states may not impose the death penalty for a crime against the person “where the victim’s life was not taken.”

So let’s suppose that the death penalty is here to stay in America. If that is, for instance, the case, then there is but one remaining choice: The United States must ensure that the system is 100 percent accurate.

Chairman Don Edwards of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcomittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights said the following in 1993:

“No matter how careful courts are, the possibility of perjured testimony, mistaken honest testimony, and human error remain all too real. We have no way of judging how many innocent persons have been executed, but we can be certain that there were some.”

This statement is all-too true. Convicted persons are wrongfully killed every year, due to human error, technical mistakes or blatant lies on the part of those involved in the hearings.

According to Amnesty International, a human rights organization, over 130 people have been released from death rows throughout the U.S. due to evidence of their wrongful convictions. In 2003 alone, 10 “fully convicted defendants were released from death row.”

Now is the time for the United States to re-emerge as a leader in the arena of human rights and civil liberties. This does not mean intervening across the globe on a whim; it means leading by example.