Opinion ID: 1439456
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Constitutionality of the Death Penalty

Text: Honken urges this court to declare the death penalty unconstitutional because of the possibility innocent people may be executed. Honken himself does not claim to be one of those innocent people he fears may be wrongly executed. Instead, Honken makes a policy argument against the death penalty generally. Honken cites a district court decision from the Southern District of New Yorklater reversed by the Second Circuitwhich held the FDPA unconstitutional. See United States v. Quinones, 205 F.Supp.2d 256 (S.D.N.Y. 2002), rev'd, 313 F.3d 49 (2d Cir.2002). Reversing and holding the FDPA constitutional, the Second Circuit observed, the argument that innocent people may be executedin small or large numbersis not new; it has been central to the centuries-old debate over both the wisdom and the constitutionality of capital punishment, and binding precedents of the Supreme Court prevent us from finding capital punishment unconstitutional based solely on a statistical or theoretical possibility that a defendant might be innocent. Quinones, 313 F.3d at 63. Since 1878, the Supreme Court has upheld challenges to death penalty statutes based upon the Due Process Clause as well as the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 65 (citing cases). Specifically, the Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), was presented with, considered, and declined to adopt the argument that capital punishment unconstitutionally deprives innocent persons who have been sentenced to death of the opportunity to exonerate themselves. Id. at 65-66. Under our Constitution, the government explicitly may, with due process of law, deprive a person of life. U.S. Const. amend. V. Honken's argument is a policy matter for Congress. We reject Honken's invitation to hold the death penalty unconstitutional based on the possibility innocent people may be executed.