Serious Error with Serious Error: Repairing a Broken System of Capital Punishment
![handle is hein.journals/walq79 and id is 983 raw text is: SERIOUS ERROR WITH SERIOUS ERROR:
REPAIRING A BROKEN SYSTEM OF
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
I. INTRODUCTION
Six days following Professor James Liebman and his colleagues'
release of the study A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 19 73-
1995 (the Liebman Study),' Washington Post columnist David Broder
wrote:
In the annals of politics, there have been few pieces of social
research which have decisively affected the course of policy debate.
Michael Harrington's The Other America'2 opened the eyes of the
nation-and of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson-to the extent of
poverty in this nation. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's essay on The
Negro Family'3 alerted President Richard Nixon and his successors
to the plight of female-headed welfare families.
Now, there may be a third. James S. Liebman's just-published
report, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases 1973-
1995,''4 transforms the debate on the death penalty as much as those
earlier works did the understanding of poverty and welfare in
America.5
This Note is written as a warning to Mr. Broder and those who have
read and will read the Liebman Study. Although the study tracks serious
error'6 found throughout capital cases in the U.S. judicial system, the
study contains serious error itself. This Note does not claim that Professor
Liebman and his colleagues' conclusions are incorrect. It may be true that
1. James S. Liebman, Jeffery Fagan, & Valerie West, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital
Cases, 1973-1995, (June 12, 2000), at http://justice.policy.netljpreport/index.html [hereinafter
Liebman Study], reprinted in James S. Liebman, Jeffery Fagan, Valerie 'West, & Jonathan Lloyd,
Capital Attrition: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, 78 TEX. L. REV. 1839 (2000) (abridged
version of the original) [hereinafter Capital Attrition].
2. MICHAEL HARRINGTON, THE OTHER AMERICA: POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES (1962).
3. OFFICE OF POLICY PLANNING & RESEARCH, U.S. DEP'T OF LABOR, THE NEGRO FAMILY:
THE CASE FOR NATIONAL ACTION (1965).
4. Liebman Study, supra note 1.
5. David Broder, Editorial, Broken Justice, WASH. POST, June 18, 2000, at B7 (emphasis and
notes added).
6. Serious error as referenced in this Note refers to serious error as defined by the Liebman
Study. See Liebman Study, supra note 1, at 134-37 nn.33-40. For a discussion of serious error, as
defined by the Liebman Study, see infra Part IV.B.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/walq79&div=30&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Serious Error with Serious Error: Repairing a Broken System of Capital Punishment
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