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There Is No Fail-Safe in the Death Penalty

By standdown

That's the title of an editorial in today's Virginian-Pilot.  LINKNearly a dozen years after participating in a murder, after IQ tests showed he was mentally retarded, after his case went to the U.S. Supreme Court and changed the nation?s death penalty practices, after his execution was set for 2005, Daryl Atkins finally got the sentence he deserved: mandatory life in prison. A York-Poquoson circuit judge commuted Atkins? death sentence, ruling last week that prosecutors had withheld evidence from a jury that might have kept Atkins off death row. The decision had nothing to do with the long-running debate over Atkins? degree of mental impairment. It was about what?s fair and what isn?t. And:That?s the saving grace about a life sentence...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on January 25, 2008 (boomark / email).