Even more disturbing to proponents of state killing than the DNA work done by Mr. Scheck and others in establishing actual innocence of persons sentenced to death has been the in-depth study by James S. Lieberman and his colleagues of reversible error rates in capital cases for all capital cases from 1973 through 1995. Though there are some statutes authorizing execution for things like espionage, we think of execution primarily as a potential punishment for willful homicide. Approximately 21,000 homicides are committed in the United States each year. From 1984 to 1998, a period by which most states with the death penalty had amended their statutes to comply with Furman v. Georgia, an average of 287 admissions to death row occurred each year. From this staggering disparity, it seems clear that there is a strong public consensus that an execution is not the appropriate outcome for the overwhelming majority of homicides.
Some states are more enthusiastic for the death penalty than others.
There is a similar gap in Virginia, between a place like Danville and the more urbanized areas of northern Virginia. Unfortunately, the selection process is disgracefully arbitrary, not only in Texas and Virginia, but everywhere. The principal reason for such arbitrary selection of targets for execution is that the charging decision is everywhere left to the discretion of local prosecutors. Many of these must run for the office, and even in states where local prosecutors are appointed, they are persons with ambitions that are nurtured by publicity. Thus the selection process is largely media driven.