Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I read an interesting article today which is related:
U.S. Death Sentences Drop to 30-Year Low
The opinion was given by several of you in this thread that the long appeal process should not exist for those on death row, and those convicted and sentenced to death should be executed quickly, perhaps like Saddam Hussein was.
There then was discussion about wrongful executions and the fact that many death sentences have been overturned during later appeals. Your argument about this was that most of these sentences being overturned must have been due to new DNA evidence being introduced. If this was indeed true, then such mistakes would no longer be made as DNA evidence is now used whenever available.
But this article states the following:
Since the death penalty was reinstated, 123 people have been freed from death row after significant questions were raised about their convictions - 14 of them through DNA testing, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
So out of the 123 cases where people were freed from death row, only 14 (or about 11%) were due to DNA evidence. That means that even with DNA evidence, 109 people would have been wrongfully executed had the appeal process not existed.