Executing the Innocent



To the Editor:

Re “The Court’s Duty” (editorial, Aug. 19):

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas claim that a fair trial 
is all that is needed to execute a demonstrably innocent person. They 
confuse perfect with imperfect procedural justice.

When we have no concept of a fair outcome other than the outcome of a 
fair procedure, we have “perfect” procedural justice, illustrated by 
the outcome of spinning a fair roulette wheel.

In a criminal trial, a fair outcome is convicting all and only the 
guilty; its procedures are an imperfect way of producing that 
outcome. We cannot execute innocent people just because they had a 
fair trial.

Norman Daniels
Brewster, Mass., Aug. 19, 2009

The writer is a professor of ethics and population health at the 
Harvard School of Public Health.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/opinion/l21courts.html?
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