We can't take it back: consider before executing...

TENNESSEE:

Death penalty errors can't be taken back

On Feb. 4 at 1 a.m., the state of Tennessee plans to execute Steve Henley. Henley was convicted and sentenced in 1985 based almost exclusively on the testimony of a codefendant, an admitted drug addict, who had implicated himself in the crime and served only 5 years in prison for his participation.

How can we move to take a man's life based on nothing more than the testimony of a drug addict who made a deal? How can we allow this in kind of thing to happen in our criminal system?

Does it not anger us when the authorities we trust to administer justice allow deals involving questionable testimony from questionable sources rather than evidence to make cases? How can we stomach the kind of deal-making that allows the fastest person to take a deal to walk free after 5 years yet puts another person to death for the same crime?

Plus, Steve Henley's case is an example of inadequate representation, the kind of lack of courtroom help that is being found all-too-common by our own state's committee to review the death penalty. Do we dismiss these outrages because it is not our own family member or friend who is experiencing such an injustice? How is this justice for the victims? If our own state legislative committee has found such problems in our death penalty process, how can we move forward with taking this man's life?

If we make a mistake by executing Steve Henley, we cannot take it back. Let us, as a state, stop ignoring the problem and take a collective, hard look at this process before we take any more lives.

REV. JODI MCCULLAH -- Clarksville

(source: Letter to the Editor, Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle)