This crisis is not about the death penalty itself, or how you feel about it, whether capital punishment is right or wrong.

This is a crisis of our justice system, on which I have a lot riding. We put a lot of faith in the system, but it’s not without flaws. We all know that. But it’s still supposed to work. It didn’t work tonight. Due process wasn’t present tonight. Was it truly present the three other times the execution was stayed in the past four years?

If this much doubt existed, a punishment so final as death should never have been an option. When seven of the nine witnesses recanted their testimony, and swore under oath that they were coerced by law enforcement to sign written statements and testify in court to events they now admit didn’t happen, a crisis emerges. When ballistics evidence is suspect it should be investigated further. If nothing other than faulty testimony links someone to a crime, reasonable doubt exists.

Maybe not for a black man accused of killing a white police officer in Georgia.

Maybe not for the 130 people exonerated from death row by the Innocence Project based on DNA/biological evidence and often faulty eyewitness testimony.

If you follow me on Google reader or even here and on facebook occasionally, you know I’ve been promoting the Innocence Project for years. This case has cone across my radar more than once. Each time, there was hope. Hope that the system wouldn’t fail us.

It failed us tonight. Left us bereaved and bewildered.

Now we have to figure out what to do about it.