U.S. House of Representatives Statement of the Honorable William D. Delahunt of
Massachusetts on the Introduction of the Innocence Protection Act

Wednesday, March 7, 2001

I am very pleased to be here today to join with Senators Leahy, Collins and
Smith and Representatives LaHood and Pryce in introducing the Innocence
Protection Act.

I am especially pleased to be able to report that we are introducing this
bipartisan measure with more than 100 cosponsors in the House of
Representatives. I think what that kind of momentum indicates is that this bill
represents an idea whose time has come.


* * * Today some 3700 people sit on death row in America-a greater number than
in any other year since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. Since
then, a total of 699 men and women have been executed in the United States,
including 16 so far in the first two months of this year.

During this same period, 95 people-more than one out of every 100 men and women
sentenced to death in the United States-have been exonerated after spending
years on death row for crimes they did not commit.

People like Randall Adams, who was nearly executed for the 1976 killing of a
Dallas policeman until Errol Morris's 1988 documentary, The Thin Blue Line,
demonstrated that Adams's principal accuser had in fact committed the crime.

And Walter McMillian, convicted on perjured testimony in a two-day trial, and
released seven years later after the State of Alabama admitted that prosecutors
had willfully withheld evidence of his innocence.

And Anthony Porter, a mentally ill man who was just two days away from
execution when the real killer was persuaded to confess-not by prosecutors, but
by a private investigator working with journalism students at Northwestern
University.

And Earl Washington, a mentally retarded man who served 17 years in prison,
much of it on death row, for a rape and murder he did not commit, and finally
regained his freedom just a few weeks ago thanks to DNA testing.

It's cases like these that convinced such organizations as the American Bar
Association-which has no position on the death penalty per se-to urge a halt to
executions until each jurisdiction can ensure that it has taken steps to
minimize the risk that innocent persons may be executed.

It's cases like these that convinced Governor Ryan-a Republican and a supporter
of the death penalty-to put a halt to executions in Illinois until he could be
certain that "everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty."

And it's cases like these that should convince every American that Governor
Ryan and the American Bar Association are right. We may not all agree on the
ultimate utility or morality of capital punishment. Indeed, you have before you
a group of cosponsors who differ on that question.

I spent my career as a prosecutor in opposition to the death penalty. My friend
and colleague Ray LaHood is a supporter of the death penalty. But we agree
profoundly that a just society cannot engage in the killing of the innocent. We
have come together today in this bipartisan effort to help prevent what
Governor Ryan has called "the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of
innocent life."

As a prosecutor for over 20 years, I was treated to a daily lesson in human
fallibility. Judges, jurors, police, eyewitnesses, defense attorneys, and
prosecutors themselves-all are human beings, and all make mistakes. The justice
system is a human artifact, and nothing we can do will bring absolute certainty
to such a system. But we do have the means at our disposal to minimize the
possibility of error. And where lives are at stake, we have a responsibility to
put those tools to use.

The Innocence Protection Act will help ensure that fewer mistakes are made in
capital cases. And that when mistakes are made, they are caught in time.

It was a decade ago that John J. Curtin, Jr., then the President of the
American Bar Association, declared that " a system that would take life must
first do justice." We are still struggling to do justice in death penalty
cases, and I believe this bill will advance that goal.