Yesterday, Christians around the world celebrated the resurrection of a man wrongfully sentenced to death. At the same time, Chris Powell’s editorial in the Journal Inquirer reflected on recent discussions about the death penalty in Connecticut.

In his column, he discusses “the risk of mistaken convictions and wrongful executions, a risk to which Connecticut now should be more sensitive, having just seen, thanks to new DNA evidence, the spectacular exoneration of a man wrongly convicted of rape and another man wrongly convicted of murder.”

This, along with many other reasons is why I oppose the death penalty, and believe that bills that would eliminate the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or other release is the right way to go.

Mr. Powell doesn’t seem to want to go this far, and is instead suggesting that “another precaution against mistaken executions is available -- to pass a law requiring that any death sentence have the affirmation of both jury and judge that the crime has been proven not just "beyond a reasonable doubt" but to a certainty.”

I’m not sure how you can ever be certain of anything, so that might be a step in the right direction. However, I have a different idea. If we can’t do away with capital punishment, what about making it a capital offense to wrongfully sentence anyone to the death penalty, or to fail to stay the execution of a person later found to be innocent?

If you are a judge, a prosecutor or a member of a jury that sentences a person to the death penalty, and that person is later found innocent you are guilty of premeditated murder and the capital penalty should apply to you. Likewise, if you are a Governor and you fail to stay the execution of a person later found to be innocent, you too are guilty of premeditated murder.

While this won’t do away with the death penalty completely and I don’t think it is feasible or appropriate for a lot of reasons, it might help people think a little bit more seriously about the issue that Mr. Powell raises.