After months of inactivity, the state of Georgia is killing people again. Yesterday, it executed a man convicted of murdering his girlfriend.  There had been no executions in the U.S. since September while the U.S. Supreme Court determined whether the death potions concocted by various states constituted cruel and unusual punishment.  The court ruled the lethal injections are constitutional, at least as practiced in Kentucky.  However, that has not stopped other states from returning to their murderous ways.

I was once a proponent of capital punishment but became an abolitionist years ago for several reasons, not the least of which is the likelihood of innocent people being put to death.  Think for a moment about the likes of Canadians: Milgaard, Marshall, Morin and others who were wrongfully committed of murder.  Had they been convicted in the U.S., they’d likely be dead by now. (Canada officially eliminated capital punishment on July 14, 1976.  The last execution was in 1962.)

The U.S. leads the way amongst Western industrialized countries in terms of state-sanctioned executions and yet ironically, it also has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Increasingly, American prisoners on death row are being exonerated for their alleged crimes.  No where is this more evident than in Dallas, Texas where many individuals have had serious charges reversed through the efforts of a group of lawyers and law students known as the Innocence Project of Texas.  

Their work has been remarkable and it has the support of the new District Attorney in Dallas.  He agreed last year to review hundreds of convictions for murder, rape and other serious crimes, some dating back to 1970.