US Supreme Court Justice Ms Sandra Day O'Connor is worried that innocent people may have been executed in the United States, and said in remarks this week that serious questions are being raised about the death penalty.
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US Supreme Court Justice Ms Sandra Day O'Connor
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Ms O'Connor cited the cases of 90 death row inmates exonerated since 1973 before their death sentences could be carried out as evidence that innocent people may have been executed.
"If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed," she was quoted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
US states have put to death more than 700 prisoners in the past 25 years. The federal government resumed executions on June 11th after a 38-year hiatus with the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. A week later, convicted drug trafficker Juan Raul Garza was executed at the same federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
"Serious questions are being raised about whether the death penalty is being fairly administered in this country," Ms O'Connor said.
She decried the gap in legal defence available to those with adequate resources and those without.
Ms O'Connor said statistics showed that in Texas, which leads the nation in executions, defendants with appointed counsel were 28 per cent more likely to be convicted than those retaining their own attorneys; if convicted, they were 44 per cent more likely to receive a death sentence.
Like Ms O'Connor, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has also criticized of the nation's death penalty system.
Viewed as a moderate on the high court, Ms O'Connor, 71, was nominated in 1981 and became the first woman justice.
She said she was troubled by high contingency fees many lawyers charge in civil cases and lamented what she called the over-legalisation of everyday life.
"As one ages, as I am doing, one begins to look back," she said. She commended advances by women and minorities in legal circles and said more women lawyers and judges may provide a dose of common sense into the legal system.