I oppose the death penalty. My colleague, Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), supports it. But we agree profoundly that a just society cannot engage in the killing of the innocent. We have come together in a bipartisan effort, introducing the Innocence Protection Act to help prevent what Governor Ryan has called “the ultimate nightmare, the state’s taking of innocent life.”

Identical legislation has been introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Gordon Smith (R-Or.) and Susan Collins (R-Me.), who also hold differing views on the death penalty itself.

The Innocence Protection Act is a comprehensive package of concrete reforms that will help reduce the risk that innocent persons will be put to death—and that the guilty will remain at large.

The Act includes two principal elements. First, it would ensure eligible federal and state inmates access to DNA testing to establish innocence. Currently, many are denied access to testing and/or prevented from introducing the evidence that would exonerate them—and, in many cases, identify the guilty party.

Second, the Act would improve the quality of legal representation for indigent defendants in capital cases through federal incentives to states. Lawyers assigned by the court to these unpopular and unprofitable cases are often inexperienced, overworked or incompetent. It is little wonder that over half of all death sentences are overturned on appeal or after post-conviction review because of errors at trial.

Within the Congress, we’re making real progress. We now have over 200 House and Senate cosponsors—more than twice the number who were committed to last year’s bill.

As a prosecutor for over 20 years, I was treated to a daily lesson in human fallibility. Judges, jurors, police, eyewitnesses, defense attorneys and prosecutors themselves—all are human beings, and all make mistakes. The justice system is a human artifact, and nothing we can do will bring absolute certainty to such a system.