Finding chinks in the death penalty machine: Florida lawyers serve on ABA team.

Fling together Fourth Circuit State Attorney Harry Shorstein and former Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw on an ABA team evaluating Florida's death penalty and you get an interesting mix.

Shorstein is a proponent of the death penalty.

Shaw is opposed to the death penalty.

But both respected lawyers agree on this much: Florida's death penalty system is fundamentally fl awed, and if you are going to have a death penalty statute, it ought to be fair.

They, along with six others on the Florida team, signed their names to the 460-page Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in the State Death Penalty System: The Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report.

The report, released September 17, did not take a position pro or con on the death penalty or ask for a moratorium, but it does urge action by all three branches of state government to make Florida's death penalty system more fair and accurate (see sidebar).

"Those of us who favor the death penalty, we are struggling to right the problems and right the ship so it will continue to sail," Shorstein said. "I must confess to you, I am not sure it's possible."

Said Shaw: "First, up front, I am opposed to the death penalty. I think it's a system that at the least needs improving. It's sort of a crap shoot, really. If you get a good lawyer, chances are better than if you had a bad lawyer, no matter what the evidence is.

"If you come from a certain socioeconomic class, your chances of being subjected to the death penalty seemingly are greater. And when you've been in the system, you know instinctively that some of the things I am talking about now are the truth. But when you are called upon by skeptics who say, 'Back that up,' many times you can't. This is why we have tried to put together some stats. Let those who make these types of determinations have it at least available to them."

What's available online is the executive summary and full report, complete with charts and statistics, dealing with every step involved in a death case: law-enforcement interrogation practices, DNA testing labs, biases in charging and sentencing racial and ethnic minorities, shoddy lawyering, confused penalty phase jurors, secret clemency proceedings, and maintaining the independence of judges who preside over death cases.

Go to www.abavideonews.org/ABA340 and click on the state of Florida. Links to the report and supporting materials will pop up.

Already, the lawyers for death row inmate Arthur Dennis Rutherford, Linda McDermott and Martin McClain, seized on the report's findings as reasons to stay their client's execution. But October 12, six days before...