Those of us in the abolition movement know that the system is far from perfect. We know that the risk of executing an innocent person is extremely high. We've had 124 exonerations of death row prisoners in the modern era of executions. Right here in Tennessee we're waiting for a decision from the U. S. Supreme Court on the case of Paul House, an innocent man by any rational judgment who has been on our death row for 21 years.

Across the country, we've started to see evidence that we have actually executed some innocent people, and this week a new story has come to light. Two years ago, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas for arson killing his three children in 1992. Yet recent reviews of the evidence, when examined with our currently improved understanding of arson, reveals that, in all likelihood, the fire was in fact just what Willingham said it was, an accident.

You can read a good summary of this case on the widely read blog Daily Kos here http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/3/4756/87275

And a good collection of all the national news coverage of these cases at http://www.standdown.org/blog/index.php?p=597

It is high time that everyone, on both sides (and the middle) of this debate, acknowledge the truth. Our current death penalty system is extremely fraught with error and will sentence and execute innocent people.