Cardinal Roger Mahony, the Roman Catholic archbishop...

Cardinal Roger Mahony, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, has urged California Gov. Gray Davis to impose a moratorium on executions and to conduct a "comprehensive and objective study" of the state's "fatally flawed" death penalty system. In a letter to Davis, who is Catholic, Cardinal Mahony stated, "I believe that an objective study will provide substantial factual data to support moral and ethical questions raised by the Catholic bishops of California and the United States regarding the death penalty." Citing the moratorium in Illinois and the New Hampshire Legislature's vote to abolish the death penalty, Cardinal Mahony wrote that "California has no less an obligation to conduct a thorough assessment of its system in order to identify the inequities, weaknesses, and biases of the process used to try those charged with capital crimes and administer the death penalty." So far, there has been no movement in the California Legislature to seek a moratorium on executions. But Gov. Gray Davis, perhaps the state's most pro-death-penalty elected Democrat, signed into law a bill, by state Sen. John Burton, that permits DNA testing on behalf of convicted criminals.