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While writing my dissertation on true-crime novels, I occasionally dreamed I was awaiting execution for a crime I hadn't committed. The idea that the United States executes innocent people is terrifying. If you think that rarely happens, consider the recent news from Illinois: Since capital punishment was reinstated there in 1977, 12 people have been executed, and another 13 death-row residents have been released because evidence confirmed their innocence. Consider this as well: legal experts tell us that Illinois has a better capital punishment system than most other states (for example, poor defendants have better legal counsel).

Whom can we count on to insure that the capital punishment machine doesn't occasionally grind up an innocent person? We have laws to govern the process and publicly elected officials responsible for enforcing them. But what happens when laws are faulty or officials shirk their duties?

Virginia's faulty laws should frighten us all. In our state, if a person is sentenced to death, any evidence suggesting his or her innocence can be introduced only within 21 days of the judgment. So if, by some fluke, you're sitting on death row and your attorney can't come up with the evidence to clear you within three weeks, you're out of luck. As former Attorney General Mary Sue Terry said once, after 21 days, "Innocence is irrelevant."

One publicly elected official who seems to shirk his duty in capital cases is Texas governor-turned-presidential-candidate George W. Bush. Granted, Bush works in a state with faulty laws. He can't commute a death sentence on his own, as Virginia's governor can, but only if the Board of Pardons and Paroles recommends commutation. That Board apparently does not take capital cases seriously either. In 1998, when a civil suit was brought against it, evidence revealed that the Board summarily rejected clemency appeals and had never had an actual HEARING. The board has 18 members, 12 of them appointed by Bush. Yet Bush has not publicly criticized the Board, nor has he attempted to find out why it doesn't hold hearings, as best I can tell.

Even worse, when Bush had an opportunity to rectify the problem of inadequate representation for poor defendants, he declined. In 1999, the Texas legislature passed a bill to establish public defender offices in the 251 out of 254 Texas counties which do not currently have such an office. Bush vetoed the bill. It's hard not to see that action as "I don't care whether poor people have good lawyers or not."

Not all public officials shirk their duty where the death penalty is concerned. Illinois Governor George Ryan, also a Republican and Bush's Illinois campaign chair, recently stayed the executioner. Ryan, concerned about those 13 death-row residents found innocent and released, said "Let's stop this until we're sure we aren't making mistakes." His approach is to play it safe. Bush, on the other hand, signed legislation five years ago to limit the appeals process and speed up executions, despite evidence that a shorter appeals period would have victimized several innocent Texans during the 20 years between the death penalty's resumption and the legislation.

Perhaps some other governors will take up the mantle with Ryan and examine death penalty laws and procedures in their states. The general trend in our country, though, since the Furman v. Georgia decision which temporarily stopped executions in the 1970s, is toward more and quicker executions. With Bush a front-runner for the White House, can we really expect a reversal of that trend?

When elected officials won't intervene to prevent injustice, who's left?

The media.

In a package of stories published Sunday, March 5, The Roanoke Times showed why the framers of our Constitution guaranteed freedom to the press. When the government abuses or abdicates its power to insure justice, the media must have the freedom to tell the people.

With five articles and a large editorial cartoon in Sunday's Horizon section, The Roanoke Times invited readers to consider a death penalty moratorium until important questions can be answered. The articles were culled from various places -- The New York Times News Service, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Virginia Forum. The Roanoke Times appears to have put this package together, performing a vital public service.

The balance of the articles is fairly good. It helped, in this regard, that no writer calls for an end to the death penalty per se -- just a postponement pending review of the statutes. Two writers call FOR the moratorium, representing the American Bar Association and Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. A third, Alan Berlow, explains Gov. George Ryan's recent decision and why George W. Bush should take a lesson from it. Berlow leans in the pro-moratorium direction.

Two Fort Worth Star-Telegram writers represent the state of things in Texas. The more moderate, Jill "J.R." Labbe, argues that Texas law does not give Bush enough jurisdiction to follow Ryan's suit. Her either-or fallacy (the argument that Texas law, not the governor, is to blame), however, suggests that her real aim is to defend Bush.

Defending legalized execution is clearly the agenda of Labbe's Fort Worth colleague, Bill Thompson. I think Thompson would push the plunger himself if officials would let him, especially if death penalty opponents were on the receiving end. Thompson's diatribe is the weak link in the group of stories, and Roanoke Times editors should have found something better. The column's inclusion opens the door to the allegations of deck-stacking often levied against the "liberal media." There must be some rational person who's argued against the moratorium or some calmer person who's not employed by The Fort Worth newspaper.

The package may not contain perfect balance, but it doesn't have to. On Feb. 19, The Roanoke Times went on record urging a death penalty moratorium in Virginia ("Ending Virginia's Assembly-Line Executions," A9). Having taken a position, the newspaper doesn't have a responsibility to provide perfect balance, only to represent a range of positions.

The subject of Sunday's Horizon section affects all of us. Even if we aren't unlucky enough to be wrongly accused of murder, we live in a state which executes other people -- including some innocent ones -- in my name and yours. No state function is more serious than taking a life, and because that function is usually performed behind closed doors in the dead of night, the media must help us judge whether our leaders exercise or abdicate their responsibilities in this deadly business.

In this capacity, the media serve as another component of the checks-and-balances system. This is why British statesman Edmund Burke called the reporter's gallery "the Fourth Estate" of Parliament and declared it "more important by far" than the other three.

Closer to home, that esteemed Virginian Thomas Jefferson echoed Burke's reverence for the role of the press when he said that forced to choose between having a government and having newspapers, he would "not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Of course, we don't have to choose between those who lead us in conducting the nation's business and those who lead us in forming our opinions. As long as we have both, we are a freer nation, one where justice is more likely to prevail.