The moratorium effort has been endorsed by more than a thousand local governments and organizations across the country. Just earlier this week, the National Catholic Conference of Bishops, which has supported a moratorium, reiterated its commitment to abolition of the death penalty. It has earned a certain political and legal currency, and even legitimacy. Now, let me be clear. I believe murderers and others who perpetrate heinous crimes should be punished and sometimes punished severely.
Justice demands that crimes be punished.
But those who demand justice must administer justice. There is nothing that could threaten our criminal justice system more than the state taking the life of an innocent person, or even the perception that the state may take the life of an innocent person. In February of this year, the Senior Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy of Vermont, introduced the Innocence Protection Act to address, in part, that very risk, by ensuring access to post-conviction modern DNA testing and providing minimum standards for legal representation for people facing the death penalty. I was pleased to join as an original cosponsor of Senator Leahy's bill. He revised it in June, and it now has 14 cosponsors in the Senate, including three Republicans.