The New York Times

Monday, May 8, 2000

Reforming the Death Penalty System

Congressional misgivings about the nation's profoundly flawed death penalty system may lead to important reforms. In February, Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, introduced a bill that

would provide competent lawyers to capital defendants and guarantee federal and state death-row inmates access to DNA testing if that could help exonerate them. The measure's chances have now brightened with the emergence of a Republican co-sponsor, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon.

The companion version introduced in the House a month ago also boasts bipartisan sponsors - Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican, and Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat. This effort has the endorsement of Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, the Republican who declared a moratorium on executions in his state in January.

Expanding on Governor Ryan's idea, Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, has put in a bill that would impose a moratorium on both state and federal executions while a national commission examined the troubling questions that have arisen

- not least the glaringly inadequate safeguards to prevent conviction and execution of the innocent.

These moves come at a moment of growing skepticism about the system across the ideological spectrum. The religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and the conservative columnist George Will have lately expressed concern about the death of innocent people. In three new decisions, meanwhile, the Supreme Court has signaled that while federal courts retain a role in correcting death penalty injustices, their room to do so has been limited by a

1996 law intended to speed executions It is Congress's responsibility to undo that damage by minimizing the chances of unfairness and mistakes.