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What can and should be done about Pennsylvania's decade-long moratorium on executions?

By Douglas A. Berman

This new piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which is headlined "Death row inmates stay indefinitely: No one has been executed in Pennsylvania since 1999," raises the question in the title of the post.  As the start of the article highlights, Pennsylvania's Governor continues to sign death warrants despite recognizing that the state has had a de facto moratorium on executions for more than a decade: Richard Baumhammers and Ronald Taylor have a lot in common.  Both are racially motivated mass killers who slaughtered innocents within a month of each other a decade ago, Mr. Baumhammers targeting minorities and Mr. Taylor targeting whites.  Both are on death row.  And neither is likely to be executed for many years, if ever. Gov. Ed Rendell signed a death warrant for Mr...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 25, 2010 (boomark / email).