exas Governor George W. Bush sought to put his ''compassionate'' side on display last week by giving a 30-day reprieve to a man on death row to allow further DNA testing of evidence in his case. No American who cares about equal justice should be reassured by this move.
Since taking office in 1995 Bush has executed 131 inmates, more than any other governor. He has pushed for accelerated appeals, so Texas now leads the nation in the pace of executions. The state does not have a ''life without parole'' option, which many who support capital punishment say they would prefer if it were available. Texas also does not forbid the execution of the mentally retarded. Bush has done nothing to change this.
Last year Bush vetoed a modest ''indigent defense bill,'' which would have established a statewide legal aid program to provide lawyers for poor criminal defendants. Texas has no such program. Instead, defendants are represented in court by lawyers who are often friends or campaign contributors of the state's elected judges. The legal representation provided such poor defendants has been spotty, at best. Some of the lawyers have been literally caught napping in the courtroom.
But the tide has been running against Texas on the death penalty, and Governor Bush appears to have taken notice. His own Illinois state campaign chairman, Republican Governor George Ryan, called a moratorium on executions earlier this year, after DNA testing proved several death row inmates were innocent. At least a dozen other states have moratorium bills pending in their legislatures, and there is one in Congress, sponsored by Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. New Hampshire's legislature voted to ban capital punishment outright, but the bill was vetoed by Governor Jeanne Shaheen.
Bush also said he would support DNA testing ''to erase any doubts or concerns'' about innocent people being executed, though only a handful of states guarantee post-conviction DNA testing for the condemned, and Texas isn't one of them.
The advent of more sophisticated DNA tests has, paradoxically, been a boon for both opponents and defendants of capital punishment. A national organizing drive called ''the innocence project,'' supported mostly by law and journalism students, has succeeded in overturning dozens of death row cases by demanding DNA tests whenever physical evidence was available. But death penalty supporters like Bush rely on DNA to bolster claims that the system works. In February, Bush boasted: ''I am confident that every person put to death under my watch in Texas has been guilty.''
In many cases, however, the verdict hinges not on physical evidence that can be tested but on eyewitness testimony, which is both very powerful to jurors and notoriously unreliable. The system is still fraught with prejudice and error.
The probability that innocent poeple are being executed may be the most compelling reason to oppose capital punishment, but it is not the only one. Capital punishment does not deter crime. It is worth remembering that states with death penalties do not have lower crime rates than those without; quite the opposite is true. No state in New England has executed a prisoner since the Supreme Court declared the punishment constitutional in 1976, and it has the lowest regional crime rate in the country.
The United States stands in the ignoble company of Congo, China, and Iran among top countries putting prisoners to death, and it is increasingly isolated among the world's democracies. The punishment is degrading, uncivilized, and brutalizing to the entire society. There is nothing compassionate about it.
