County Attorney Laura Conover is right to urge that Governor Katie Hobbs’ study of Arizona’s death penalty should be expanded to evaluate biases and inequities within the justice system. These biases and inequities include racial and ethnic disparities, which is why the NAACP has called for elimination of the death penalty.
The book entitled “Arbitrary Death: A Prosecutor’s Perspective on the Death Penalty,” by distinguished former Pima County homicide prosecutor Rick Unklesbay, details the evidentiary facts and procedural processes and outcomes of many capital cases in Arizona and concludes - based upon the evidence and outcomes - that the death penalty has been applied arbitrarily. Arbitrary application of a law is unjust; it violates the guarantees of substantive due process and equal protection of the laws and is therefore unconstitutional.
The evidence presented in Unklesbay’s book should be considered by the Governor’s team assessing the death penalty in Arizona. (Unklesbay has donated all book proceeds to the nonprofit organization Homicide Survivors, Inc., which assists families of murder victims.)
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Amelia Craig Cramer, NAACP Tucson Branch Vice President Retired Chief Deputy Pima County Attorney
Downtown
Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.
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