USA - Missouri. ABA study recommends changes to Missouri death penalty system.

Study recommends changes to Missouri death penalty system. Missouri prosecutors too often are given the opportunity to seek the death penalty, according to a new report by the American Bar Association. Aside from limiting the types of cases in which the death penalty can be sought, the report makes more than 25 recommendations that it says would improve fairness in the use of capital punishment here. The recommendations range from new evidence preservation policies to laws that aim to protect the mentally disabled. Currently, prosecutors can use one of 17 aggravating circumstances to argue for death sentences in murder cases. “Under the current law, virtually any murder is eligible for the death penalty,” said St. Louis attorney Douglas Copeland, who co-chaired the assessment committee that drafted the recommendations. The committee’s report, released during a news conference at the state Capitol today, recommends a substantial revision of the aggravating circumstances policy, narrowing the use only to the most serious cases. “Such revisions would substantially reduce the risk that the death penalty will be arbitrarily applied and would obviate the need for the Supreme Court of Missouri to consider every intentional homicide case in its death sentence proportionality review,” according to the report. Missouri is the 10th state for which the ABA has sponsored a death penalty report. The review committee did not look at specific death penalty cases in the state, but it used ABA guidelines to identify its recommendations. Aside from changes to the cases in which the death penalty can be sought, the group has recommended increasing standards for collecting and preserving DNA evidence in capital murder cases, adopting new eyewitness identification policies and providing exemption for people who suffer from extreme mental disabilities. In 2001, Missouri banned the execution of the mentally retarded. “The same rules should apply to the severely mentally ill,” Copeland said.