continue to monitor letters to the editor in your area and send them to tcask ... you're bound to find articulate voices that find honed in ways to say, "the risk of executing one innocent person is simply too high," ... mr. davis, thank you lending your voice of reason to the discussion...

Sunday, 07/02/06
Letters to the Editor
End the death penalty, stop the endless appeals

To the Editor:

Tim Oliphant's three-star letter concerning the death penalty raised some very legitimate questions, but I must take issue with his main point, being simply to use the death penalty or be done with it. ("State should use death penalty or abolish it," June 27)

Mr. Oliphant bemoans the fact that "prisons are filled with dozens of death row inmates waiting for their day to come...How many more appeals must these inmates be allowed to have?" I say, as many appeals as are possible.

Whenever the government decides to execute a person for a crime, the only humane course is to exhaust every appeals process and use every bit of scientific and legal expertise available, especially DNA evidence, to establish unequivocally the guilt or innocence of that person. In the modern-day, enlightened society in which we live, to do anything less is to deny our heritage as a nation devoted to truth and justice.

If we truly wanted to end the problem of the many death row inmates waiting years for their appeals to end, we should abolish the death penalty altogether, which only drains our legal system, does nothing to deter crime and brands America as one of the few remaining backward democracies left on Earth.

William J. Davis
Shelbyville 37160
wjdavis@charter.net