A recent editorial in the Lincoln Journal Star of Nebraska concluded that experience with inaccurate evidence from crime labs shows that the death penalty cannot be trusted in the taking of life. The paper called for the repeal of the death penalty based on a case in which the state's CSI director tampered with evidence in a murder case. Recently, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the conviction of former CSI chief David Kofoed for planting evidence in a double murder. Kofoed placed a speck of blood in a car belonging to a suspect, which resulted in two innocent men being held in jail for several months. The editorial said such crime-lab error has also been found elsewhere: “You will be - or should be - appalled at the number of times that crime labs turn out to be providing inaccurate and phony evidence. The problems crop up in New York, San Francisco, Houston and many points in between. Sometimes the problem is sloppiness. Sometimes technicians are manufacturing evidence deliberately. Sometimes the science itself turns out to be untrustworthy.” The editorial cited a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences that criticized some of the science behind crime lab testimony. The report found that, other than DNA technology, “no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source,” and that, “Substantive information and testimony based on faulty forensic science analyses may have contributed to wrongful convictions of innocent people.” The editorial concluded, "The fallibility of the criminal justice system has been demonstrated again and again. Innocent people have been executed in the past and will be in the future," and thus people should "support repeal of the death penalty." Read full editorial below.
An editorial in the Baptist Standard, published in Texas, recently called for repealing the death penalty in the next legislative session. Among the reasons cited by the paper for ending capital punishment were principles of religious faith, the risk of executing innocent defendants, its ineffectiveness in deterring crime, the high costs of prosecution, and its unfairness in affecting the poor and people of color. The editorial quoted the recent 
Commentary from nationally syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne (pictured) and the New York Times reflected on the changing state of the death penalty in the U.S. in light of recent developments. Dionne cited the repeal of the death penalty in Connecticut as an example of a "remarkable pivot in the politics of the death penalty, the premier issue on which an overwhelming consensus favoring what’s taken to be the conservative side has begun to crumble." He observed that "significant groups of libertarian Republicans and opponents of abortion have crossed to the repeal side." In an editorial titled "The Myth of Deterrence," the New York Times noted that "a distinguished committee of scholars working for the National Research Council has now reached the striking and convincing conclusion that all of the research about deterrence and the death penalty done in the past generation . . . should be ignored." The Times concluded that other states should follow Connecticut’s lead in repealing the death penalty. Read full texts below.
A recent editorial in the New York Times called Connecticut's decision to repeal the death penalty part of "a growing movement against capital punishment." The editorial attributed the trend away from the death penalty to new research that shows "gross injustice in its application and enormous costs in continuing to impose it." The problem of arbitrariness recently came to light in Connecticut, where "a powerful, comprehensive study provided evidence that state death sentences are haphazardly meted out, with virtually no connection to the heinousness of the crime." The Times also cited racial bias, inadequate representation, and wrongful convictions as problems inherent to the death penalty, saying that "the system cannot be fixed. It is practically impossible to rid the legal process of biases driven by race, class and politics." Ultimately, the paper concluded, it would be better to abolish the death penalty entirely. Read the full editorial below.