Nearly 100 people who were sentenced to death in the United States have been exonerated and released from death row since the death penalty was resumed in this nation in 1976. Over 750 people have been executed (260 in Texas alone). Thus, one person has been released from death row for every 7.5 persons executed. These are startling statistics which raise serious concerns about imperfections in the legal process that can send people to their death. Similar concerns have caused all western democracies other than the United States to abolish this practice.

The problems with the criminal justice system with regard to capital cases have been well-documented: They include inadequate legal counsel for the poor, racial biases, police and prosecutorial misconduct, questionable testimony by jailhouse informants, flawed testimony by prosecution "experts", and flawed appeals and clemency procedures. Although Texas passed a new law last year to improve legal defense for the poor, it is still to be seen whether indigents will indeed receive better legal counsel. Despite a new law requiring DNA testing, Windell Broussard was recently executed without such testing although it was requested by his attorneys soon after the new law was passed. Also, mentally-insane Monty Delk was recently executed despite a new law that would have supposedly prevented his execution because Delk could not assist in his defense.

Predictions of "future dangerousness" by psychological experts, which can result in a person receiving the death penalty, are nearly always wrong. The "harmless error" doctrine of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has resulted in many people being sent to their death, some with strong claims of innocence. For all practical purposes, clemency is unknown in Texas. Texas is breaking international law each time it executes a juvenile offender or a citizen from another nation that has not been advised of his rights under the Vienna Convention.

At least seven men on Texas death row have been exonerated and released from prison since capital punishment was resumed in the state in 1982.

A number of these exonerated prisoners would have been executed if laws and procedures enacted in recent years to speed up executions had been in place in the past.

Studies have shown that the death penalty has no deterrent effect. The arbitrary and capricious nature of the death penalty has been demonstrated again and again. Economic, racial and geographic differences in the application of the death penalty have been well-documented. Most citizens do not support executing juvenile offenders and people with serious mental disabilities.

It is clearly time for a change.

When the U.S. Supreme Court declared a moratorium on executions in the 1970s, it was because the death penalty was being applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Today, the death penalty is still being applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Because this has become obvious, there are many efforts at both the state and national levels to declare, once again, a moratorium on executions while the criminal justice system is studied and improved.

These efforts are commendable and should continue.

However, on a national level, we should also seek an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to abolish the death penalty altogether as was done with slavery in the 1800s. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment".

The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment, not only because it is still applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner, but also because it is the unnecessary taking of human life.

Society can be protected by long-term incarceration of dangerous criminals. There is clearly no need to continue with executions in today's modern society.