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Why do appeals take an average of nine years? When the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, after a brief hiatus, it stressed that extreme vigilance should be applied in capital cases since death is, after all, the "most irrevocable of sanctions." But the U.S. has spent the past 20 years trading that idea in for the ideal of quick justice. The Supreme Court and the lower levels of the federal judiciary have steadily narrowed the methods of appeal. In 1984 and 1986, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that defendants were not entitled to special appeals reviews and that striking jurors from capital cases because they oppose the death penalty was constitutional. In McVeigh's trial, blast survivors who oppose capital punishment were barred by the prosecution from taking the stand during the penalty phase. Congress got into the act with the 1988 and 1994 crime bills, which included the first modern federal death-penalty statute and extended the death penalty to more than 50 different offenses. It was under one of those new statutes that McVeigh was accused of the murder of federal law-enforcement officials.
The death system, in fact, needed reform; the typical capital appeal costs the state more than imprisoning someone for life. Congress responded with the impressively titled Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which makes it increasingly difficult for defendants to secure federal review of their cases. Thanks to such laws, the appeals process won't be taking nine years anymore--and those falsely convicted will have less chance of leaving death row alive.
How many on death row are innocent? All or none, depending on whom you ask. Since 1976, however, 65 have escaped the death house when their convictions were overturned. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once wrote, "No matter how careful the courts are, the possibility of perjured testimony, mistaken honest testimony and human error remain all too real. We have no way of judging how many innocent persons have been executed, but we can be certain that there were some."
In 1985, to cite just one example, Rolando Cruz and another Chicago man were sentenced to death for the 1983 abduction, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico. The prosecution based its case on a "vision statement" from Cruz--a dream about the murder he'd allegedly recounted to police. The conviction was overturned, and Cruz was retried in 1990, but another man--who had actually confessed to the crime--was not allowed to testify, and Cruz was convicted on the same dream evidence. In 1994 the state Supreme Court overturned Cruz's second conviction, and the government began preparations for a third trial; this time the key prosecution witness recanted, and dna evidence cleared him. Cruz was acquitted in November 1995. Three prosecutors and four cops have been indicted in the case. After 11 years, Cruz is free--but under current federal law limiting appeals, he might not have fared so well.