A case in point, Sobel says, is his home state of Pennsylvania. The state currently houses the fourth largest death row population in the country, behind California, Florida and Texas. Pennsylvania leads the pack, however, in the percentage of death row inmates that are from minority groups. Of the 226 inmates now on death row in the commonwealth, 137 are Black, 19 are Latino, two are Asian and 68 are White.
Citing, among other things, inconsistencies in administration of the death penalty, the American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project recently urged a major overhaul to Pennsylvania's death penalty system. Last year, the state legislature became so concerned about wrongful convictions in the state that it authorized the Joint State Government Commission Committee on Wrongful Convictions, of which Sobel is a member. "We know that there have been major league mistakes in Pennsylvania death penalty cases," says Sobel, former president of the American Judicature Society. "Because of those mistakes, six people condemned to death have been freed from death row. If an airline crashed at least six flights out of a total less than 250, would you recommend traveling on its next flight to Los Angeles? Until the systemic flaws are addressed, I think it's shameful for us as a society to execute another person on Pennsylvania's death row."
Contrary to the federal system, Sobel says, there is no central authority within the state to ensure that all like cases are treated equally. The decision to seek the death penalty in Pennsylvania rests solely in the hands of local prosecutors whose decision to seek the death penalty may be swayed by the politics of the county they represent. "Whether or not you die in Pennsylvania for a crime very much depends on the county in which the crime was committed," Sobel says. "Bowing to political realities, a local prosecutor with a constituency largely in favor of the death penalty is far more likely to seek death than one in an area where the citizens are largely in favor of abolishing the death penalty."
Also in question is Pennsylvania's method of execution. Three of the state's inmates were scheduled to die in the fall, but because of looming questions about whether death by injection is a constitutionally prohibited form of cruel and unusual punishment, these and many other scheduled executions across the country have been put on hold. The Arlin M. Adams Center at Susquehanna will address these and other issues regarding the death penalty March 26-27 when it presents a death penalty symposium featuring Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking."
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