Capital Punishment

In a previous thread, there was a lot of back-and-forth about the possibility of capital punishment for the two men accused of murdering Douglas County Deputy Tommy Martin.

Here's today's NG article - the prosecutor is seeking the death penalty.

"The factors fit and it's the murder of a police officer. Everyone has to understand if you kill a police officer, you're facing the death penalty. It's almost mandatory," said Douglas County State's Attorney Kevin Nolan.

Nolan's decision means a new set of judicial players will be needed to try and defend Yusef K. Brown, 23, and William B. Thompson, 26. Financial help from Illinois' Capital Litigation Trial Fund should be available to Douglas County for both the prosecution and defense of the men.

Even before Nolan filed his intent to seek the death penalty, Douglas County Judge Mike Carroll took himself off the case at Brown's request. Carroll had earlier informed the attorneys representing Brown and Thompson that he was a personal friend of Mr. Martin, 59, of Tuscola.

As it turns out, Carroll is not qualified to preside, as he has not yet received death penalty certification by the Illinois Supreme Court. Carroll has been a judge since last December and hasn't attended the necessary training.

Discuss if you'd like.

I'm a conservative who opposes capital punishment, a position that often elicits surprise and questions.

Here's yet another great justification:

Jerry Miller could be angry that a rape victim misidentified him, or that he spent a quarter of a century in prison for a crime he did not commit. He could be bitter that he was paroled as a registered sex offender, forced to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet that signaled his every move.

But Miller, 48, says he is "blessed."

Since his release in March 2006, he moved in with a cousin in the south suburbs and got two jobs, one at a bus service for the disabled and one as a cook in a Dolton barbecue joint.

At the same time, he continued fighting to prove his innocence, a battle he has finally won.

On Monday, prosecutors will ask a Cook County Circuit judge to erase Miller's conviction and sentence because recent DNA tests on evidence have excluded him as the attacker.

"I am not angry. I am thankful and I feel proud of myself," Miller said Friday in an interview at an office near the Zion Christian Center in Dolton, where he attends weekly services. "I accomplished what I set out to do -- to show that they lied on me .... I made it. I'm not swept under the rug anymore."

Miller's will be the 200th exoneration in the nation based on DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic in New York.

It will be the 27th DNA exoneration in Illinois.

(Emphasis added.)

One of my fundamental political beliefs is that the government is most often incompetent and unresponsive.  I don't trust the government to spend wisely or enact policy judiciously, so I certainly don't trust them to make decisions about whether someone should be allowed to live or die.  Aside from the moral considerations of capital punishment, 27 convictions later reversed by DNA evidence is 27 pieces of damning evidence that our flawed government shouldn't be entrusted with the power to decide life and death.