Percentage of death penalty case with serious, reversible judicial error between 1973 and 1995:
| 1 | Kentucky | 100% |
| 1 | Maryland | 100% |
| 1 | Tennessee | 100% |
| 4 | Mississippi | 91% |
| 5 | Wyoming | 89% |
| 6 | California | 87% |
| 6 | Montana | 87% |
| 8 | Idaho | 82% |
| 9 | Georgia | 80% |
| 10 | Arizona | 79% |
| 11 | Alabama | 77% |
| 12 | Indiana | 75% |
| 12 | Oklahoma | 75% |
| 14 | Florida | 73% |
| 15 | North Carolina | 71% |
| 16 | Arkansas | 70% |
| 17 | Nevada | 68% |
| 18 | South Carolina | 67% |
| 18 | Utah | 67% |
| 20 | Illinois | 66% |
| 21 | Nebraska | 65% |
| 22 | Louisiana | 64% |
| 23 | Pennsylvania | 57% |
| 24 | Texas | 52% |
| 25 | Missouri | 32% |
| 26 | Virginia | 18% |
Courtesy of "A Broken System, Error Rates in Capital Cases" by Prof. James E. Liebman of the Columbia School of Law."
In our opinions, the best way to deal with the increasing
outburst of legal incompetence in the legal system is to reevaluate the
process in which lawyers are picked to reside over the cases. Also random
tests of legal and illegal substances should be administered. Tests of
the mental capacity of the representatives would help to decrease the chances
of legal incompetence.
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