It is quite evident that political considerations have eroded the function of clemency. Even evidence on innocence or doubt about the guilt of a particular individual, which should trigger a serious consideration of clemency, no longer holds water in the political climate surrounding capital punishment today. In their book In Spite of Innocence , Radelet and Bedau identify 23 cases of innocent people executed in the twentieth century. The figures on which these criminologists base their findings indicate that there may be at least 16 innocent persons among the 3,365 people on Death Row at the beginning of 1998. In the haste to execute these people through political, legislative and judicial fiat, an innocent person will almost certainly be put to death.
Most governors employ a filtering system in their clemency process.
It would justice and our society better if these preliminary filtering bodies were freed from politics and comprised of a broad spectrum of professionals and interested citizens, insuring that minorities and both genders are represented, as well as those who have a stake in the outcome. In the California process employed in at least four cases thus far, the condemned human being makes a formal application for clemency to the governor, then a public hearing is held in which interested parties may address the panel chosen from the State Board of Prison Terms political appointees. He or she is relegated to pleading for mercy on paper, a precarious position at best. After all is said and done, the governor holds a press conference and denies the application for clemency, usually reciting the prosecutorial view of the facts of the crime and his own ideology about capital punishment, reaffirming his omnipotent power of life and death, and cloaking his self-serving motivations in the guise of public good. I add, in conclusion, that there is no right to clemency, nor does it appear that any real sense of due process is involved.