Ronald Kitchen: The Latest Death Row Exoneree

Radley Balko made the following observation at his blog:

“Illinois has sentenced 224 people to death since reinstating capital punishment in 1977. Since then, 20 have been exonerated. I’m not sure what an acceptable rate of error in death penalty cases would be, but nine percent seems awfully high, doesn’t it?”

One wrongfully killed person at the hands of the state is too many, nine percent is completely unacceptable.