NACDL President Cynthia Orr Said Death Penalty Should No Longer Exist

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers President Cynthia Orr said there is no longer a place in the criminal justice system for the death penalty.

In the President Column in The Champion, the NACDL’s monthly publication, Orr said the death penalty has replaced lynching in modern society. Instead, today there is a trial that leads to the death chamber with unfair proceedings and incompetent counsel. Orr said states should abolish the death penalty, whether they do so for moral reasons or the economic savings they could have. Death is irrevocable, the president said, and there is no place for such a practice.

The November 2009 President’s Column in the Champion Magazine discusses the death penalty further.