1,000th Execution Since 1977 Will Take Place Next Week

In 1977, Gary Gilmore was the first convicted murderer to be executed in the modern era of capital punishment since the Supreme Court voted to allow states to reform the capital punishment system. Since that time, 997 prisoners have been executed in the United States, and next week the 998th, 999th, and 1000th are scheduled to die. The 1000th will probably be a 41-year old man, Robin Lovitt, who was convicted of killing a man during a pool hall robbery in 1998.

Gilmore, convicted of killing a motel manager after a life of petty crime, was executed by a firing squad after uttering the words, "Let’s do it." Although many people are familiar with Gilmore’s story, most of the other 3,400 other death row prisoners in the last 28 years are unknown to most people in the country. But since 1977, the U.S. has executed, on average, one person every 10 days. And the debate over the death penalty has raged onward the entire time, mostly because people are concerned that an innocent person might be executed. Many people believe that the criminal justice system makes mistakes, and therefore it is inevitable that some people sentenced to die are not responsible for the crimes they are charged with committing.

But advocates of the death penalty say that the real victims of the death penalty are not the potential handful of mistakenly executed prisoners, but the thousands of victims of prisoners who are languishing on death row surviving on appeal after appeal. Michael Paranzino, president of Throw Away the Key, a death penalty support group, said in regard to the observation of the 1,000th execution next week, "Since 1999 we’ve had 100,000 innocent people murdered in the United States, but nobody is planning on commemorating all those people killed."

Some supporters of the death penalty say that doing away with it would be harmful to poor minorities, because they are most often the victims of murderers. Opponents of capital punishment say the role of race and class in death penalty cases is unfair. Death sentences nationwide have dropped by 50% since the laste 1990s. Twelve states do not have the death penalty and at least two states, Illinois and New Jersey, have formal moratoriums on capital punishment. An October Gallup poll showed that 64% of Americans support the death penalty, the lowest level in 27 years. In 1994, a similar poll found that 80% of Americans supported the death penalty.

Still, many politicians want to speed up the prosecution and execution of prisoners. Both houses of Congress are considering bills that would make it harder for defendants in capital cases to take appeals to federal courts, thereby prolonging postponement of execution. Proponents of the legislation say the current appeals process can result in a prisoner languishing on death row for up to 15 years. Detractors say the new law would not give federal courts enough time to review most cases and will result in innocent people being put to death.

Since 1973, only 122 prisoners have been freed from death row, most of them in the last 15 years due to the use of DNA evidence. Although there is no proof that an innocent person has ever been executed, death penalty opponents say that the reversed convictions of those 122 prisoners should be evidence enough that mistakes have been made. But that argument does not hold water with many people because of inconsistencies and errors made in producing DNA evidence. The DNA lab in Houston was shut down in 2002 because an investigation discovered poor training methods and contaminated evidence.

In only a handful of specific cases, questions have been raised about whether an innocent person was put to death. In St. Louis, City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce has supervised the review of nearly 1,400 cases to see if DNA evidence can prove the guilt or innocence of those convicted. With only 12 cases outstanding, a review of the evidence led to the exoneration of just three men, none of whom were on death row. "Most of the time there is testing, it confirms the guilt of the defendant," Joyce said.