In 1999 Ryan Matthews was convicted of murder in a convenience store robbery gone wrong. He was sitting on death row in Louisiana in 2004 when DNA evidence identified the man who actually committed the crime.

There are 130 people that have been taken off death row since 1973 because they were wrongfully convicted.

You can never truly make up for convicting someone for a crime they did not commit but the death penalty takes away any chance.

The death penalty has always made sense to me philosophically. There are some crimes for which no other punishment seems appropriate. The world certainly does not lose much if we execute Timothy McVeigh or Jeffrey Dahmer.

The problem is there may have been someone thinking the same thing about Ryan Matthews.

Alaska has already been involved in the DNA debate when it comes to proving innocence. The William Osborne case is one the Supreme Court got wrong.

DNA testing is expensive. There will be guilty people who use it as an excuse. It is partiularly irksome if applied to every closed case out there.

DNA evidence is also extremely sensitive and specific. Unfortunately, juries may not always get it as we saw with OJ Simpson. Fortunately, every jury will not be gullible enough to fall for the Jedi mind tricks of Johnny Cochran.

Justice demands that we should pay the price if it could help in a case.

It would be easy to think the death penalty might save money by reducing costs for housing a prison inmate. That would be a false assumption. The costs associated with trying death penalty cases and the endless appeals actually spend more money.

Is it a deterrent?

That is a tough question. There are studies that say it does reduce murder rates and those that show it makes no difference. Confounding factors over years and many states make the data difficult to sort out.

Is retribution a good reason for the law?

There was a time when that seemed like a reasonable argument. Certainly, if someone killed a family member I would want to extract revenge on them.

However, as I get older I now understand revenge does not make most reasonable people feel better. The pain of life in prison might actually be a far worse fate as well. Thinking about a mistake the rest of your life is an awful burden.

Alaska needs to consider the benefits and the consequences as we wade into the death penalty debate.

There was a time 10 or 20 years ago when I would have not hesitated to support death penalty legislation without many modifications.

That is not the case now. The older I get, the more flawed the legal system appears. Juries get things wrong every day. This is one thing that must never be wrong.

Throw in the fact that capital punishment might cost the state money and my enthusiasm drops precipitously.

It is also my opinion that it does not act as a deterrent. Murderers do not often stop to think about the consequences of their actions. If they are thinking, they are working under the assumption they are going to get away with it.

If there was a way to ensure mistakes were never made and that the executions could be done cost effectively then it might be a worthwhile law. Fairness dictates that neither of these things can happen. Due process is essential even for the obviously guilty.

This a case where the inherent fallibility of the system makes a law impossible to support. Alaska is better off without the death penalty.