The recent execution of Troy Davis in Georgia again highlights the moral indefensibility of putting someone to death using a judicial process that is inherently fallible.

The latest case of taking someone’s life when too many doubts about the conviction exist should offer relief and pride to Minnesotans who haven’t fallen for the false promises offered by capital punishment supporters.

Minnesota dropped the death penalty in 1912.

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty tried to revive capital punishment during his tenure — a move that was, thankfully, blocked by the Legislature.

Davis was convicted in the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail.

A jury found that Davis, who had shot a man earlier in the evening, had killed MacPhail as he came to the assistance of a homeless man being beaten. The murder weapon was never found.

Since the verdict, seven of nine witnesses in the case changed or retracted their accounts, and new witnesses have pointed to the possibility that another man at the scene fired the weapon.

Still, multiple appeals and reviews of the case allowed the verdict to stand and the Supreme Court denied last-minute requests to halt the execution.

We may never know if Davis was or wasn’t guilty of the officer’s murder.

We do know that many others have landed on death row when they were innocent.

With the benefit of DNA evidence, more than 15 death row convictions have been reversed. For some — who were executed — new evidence came too late.

Besides the ethical problems with the death penalty, it also carries a high financial price.

Multiple studies show that each death penalty case costs $300,000 and up in additional expenses compared to sentences of life in prison.

The Death Penalty Information Center estimates that nationwide, at least $2 billion has been spent since 1976 for costs that wouldn’t have been incurred if the severest penalty were life in prison.

Even if states tried, they couldn’t reduce the costs associated with death penalty cases because of Supreme Court mandates during capital cases and for appeals after convictions.

The death penalty is unjust, out of date, expensive and doesn’t do the one thing it was intended to do — reduce murders. Minnesota — like other states without a death penalty — has a lower murder rate than states that do use capital punishment.

Hopefully, reinstating capital punishment won’t be an issue that’s ever revived here.

— Mankato Free Press, Sept. 26