Time to abandon the death penalty?

ASK THIS | March 23, 2012
 
Estimates are that 4 to 8 percent of people on death row are innocent. How many wrongful executions are too many? David Dow, author, constitutional lawyer, and founder of the Texas Innocence Network, poses four key death penalty questions and explores the answers to them.

David R. Dow 

ddow@uh.edu

1.  How frequently are death penalty trials infected by constitutional errors that go uncorrected?

2.  What is the cost of a death penalty trial, and how does that cost compare to the cost of life in prison?