Back in May, you may remember, former Dallas prosecutor James Fry wrote a searing article about how he convincd a jury to convict the wrong man 27 years ago. The Innocence Project, spurred by current Dallas DA Craig Watkins, has already exonerated 37 others based on DNA evidence — and that is mostly because Dallas County kept DNA evidence, so you can imagine how many innocent men and women are still in jail or perhaps awaiting the death penalty who had the misfortune of being convicted in other Texas counties.
Now Grits for Breakfast reports on a new study that shows that 82% of criminologists — the people who work with crime and study crime every day — do not believe the death penalty is a deterrent and 87% say abolishing the death penalty has no effect on crime rates.
What more do we need? Are we keeping the death penalty just so a few state politicians can claim to be ”tough” on crime? Are we endangering lives merely for the sake of posturing?