Bloodsworth and Austin were freed because of advances in DNA technology, a fact that prompted two commission members to ask whether the better technology assures that no innocent person will be put to death. The answer is no.

"I couldn't disagree more," [Innocence Project director Barry] Scheck said. He warned that post-conviction DNA testing is "not a panacea" that can right all wrongful convictions.

Unfortunately, DNA is not available as evidence in every death penalty conviction. Some wrongful convictions are based on mistaken (or falsified) eyewitness testimony in the absence of physical evidence. Some are based on coerced confessions. And as we very likely saw in O.J.'s case, sometimes the police are tempted to plant blood evidence to bolster their own theory of guilt.

There's just no getting around the possibility that an innocent person will be convicted and put to death. That's why Maryland's former U.S. Senator Joseph Tydings, a former death penalty prosecutor, recently argued that the risk is too great, that the proper penalty for homicide should be a life sentence, not death.