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| Judge Declares Federal Death Penalty Law Unconstitutional |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/03/2002 |
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A judge has declared that the federal death penalty is equivalent to the 'state-sponsored murder' of innocents - fueling the growing debate about the use of capital punishment. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff found the federal death penalty unconstitutional, ruling too many innocent people have been executed before they could be exonerated. Rakoff decided the current law 'denies due process and, indeed, is tantamount to foreseeable, state-sponsored murder of innocent human beings.' Rakoff is the first federal judge to declare the 1994 Death Penalty Act unconstitutional, said Lee Ginsberg, lawyer for the defendant whose case led to the decision. The ruling will not affect individual states' death penalty statutes. Thirty-eight states allow capital punishment, although some have not executed anyone for many years. The governors of Illinois and Maryland have placed moratoriums on executions in their states. Ginsberg said the Rakoff decision was further proof the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, has begun to seriously question the wisdom of the death penalty. 'I think there is a subtle shift taking place over the past few years,' said Ginsberg. 'Some of the more conservative judges are beginning to have serious doubts.' The government was expected to appeal Monday's ruling. Rakoff said in his 28-page ruling that the 1994 law violated the due process rights of defendants. Prosecutors argued the Supreme Court already has concluded that the Constitution's due process safeguards do not guarantee perfect or infallible outcomes. The judge found that the best available evidence indicates that, 'on the one hand, innocent people are sentenced to death with materially greater frequency than was previously supposed and that, on the other hand, convincing proof of their innocence often does not emerge until long after their convictions.' He said he based his findings on studies of state death penalty cases, because the number of federal death sentences - 31 - was too small to draw any conclusions. The judge did not cite specific cases. Only two people, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and drug killer Juan Garza, have been executed under the federal law. Of the remaining 29, five were reversed. The government said none of the 31 defendants was later found to be innocent. Prosecutors had argued that federal death row inmates had greater legal protections than state court defendants, but the judge found the opposite was true because the rules of evidence in federal court are more favorable to law enforcement. 'There is no good reason to believe the federal system will be any more successful at avoiding mistaken impositions of the death penalty than the error-prone state systems already exposed,' Rakoff wrote. Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock criticized the ruling. 'The determination of how to punish criminal activity within the limits of the Constitution is a matter entrusted to the democratically elected legislature, not to the federal judiciary,' she said. |
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