America debates the perfect killing

The execution of human beings is one of the excesses of the American justice system that defies justification. The catalog of values subscribed to by European nations no longer leaves room for capital punishment, which is why the U.S. practice provokes ever greater resistance, indignation and even national resentment. A new macabre milestone was reached on Wednesday night, as Dennis Dowthitt became the 700th inmate to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated 25 years ago.

Statistics, history and cultural idiosyncrasies go a long way towards explaining the death penalty's popularity in the United States. But while it is possible to understand how the nation's Puritanical religious roots continue to inform society, they can in no way excuse the practice. The moratorium on capital punishment in effect from 1972 to 1976 proves that U.S. public opinion on the issue is subject to change. Legal decisions over the admissibility of capital punishment have always followed the "moral sensibility" of a majority of the people.

While the U.S. today is far from imposing another moratorium on executions, new investigative methods -- such as genetic tests -- and several jaw-dropping reports on wrongful convictions and incompetence on the part of defense lawyers have sparked something akin to a movement to reform the system.

Some states with the death penalty have stopped executing death-row prisoners. Legislation was introduced in Congress that is meant to guarantee people accused of a capital offense a competent defense. The problem is that all of these things aim only to perfect the current system. They are designed to erase the stain of having possibly put innocent people to death from the nation's soul as prosecutor. But America is thereby absolving itself of the wrong guilt.

-- Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany