By: After reviewing its century-old stance in support of the death penalty, the Dallas Morning News is calling Sunday for the punishment to be banned in Texas.
Mentioning a case in Texas where an inmate sentenced to death was later cleared of the charges, the newspaper published an editorial for Sunday's paper saying it can no longer condone the death penalty.
The Dallas Morning News is the state's largest newspaper to oppose the death penalty in the nation's busiest capital punishment state. [The Chicago Tribune, another far-from-liberal newspaper, did the same last week.]
Citing 13 men in Dallas County who have been released from prison after years of incarceration for crimes they didn't commit and the Tulia and fake-drug scandals, the board says that such instances show that the possibility for error in the justice system is very real.
The editorial reads in part, "If we are doomed to err in matters of life and death, it is far better to err on the side of caution."
The editorial says that since Texas resumed the death penalty in 1976, it has accounted for more than one of every three executions in the country. All but one of the 13 executions nationwide so far this year have been in Texas.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here