Fallibility of the system
Grant McKenzie's editorial mulling the return of the death penalty deserves more examination. Although few would miss the likes of a Clifford Olson or Robert Picton, other considerations exist. First the ever increasing number of people who have been convicted of murder and then exonerated years later illustrates the fallibility of the legal system. It is likely that innocent people have been executed in the past. Second, those people who have been executed tend to be poor and from minority groups. Justice is not blind and the application of the death penality can not be carried out in an unbiased fashion. Until we are perfect, we run the risk of becoming the killers we seek to destroy.
Ian MacDonell,Victoria