It’s been more than 50 years since a woman has been executed by the U.S. government. Ethel Rosenberg and Bonnie Brown, who were both executed in 1953, are the only women ever to be executed by the federal government. On June 21, a federal jury in Sioux City ruled that it should happen again.

This time the case involved Angela Johnson who conspired with her boyfriend, Dustin Honken, to torture and kill five people, including two children. After more than 10 hours of deliberation, the jury recommended the death penalty on eight of the 10 charges brought against her.

“We are very happy,” said Brenda Degeus, a sister of one of the victims. “This woman deserves death.”

We partially agree with Degeus; Johnson deserves to die, but we are definitely not happy with the recommendation by the jury.

Our reason is simple: Even though there are criminals who deserve to die, we don’t believe in the death penalty system. The decision to put someone to death shouldn’t be in the hands of a government system — which is not only fallible, but also contaminated with racial and class bias.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 117 people on death row have been exonerated.

Ninety percent of those facing the death penalty cannot afford their own attorneys. Even though blacks are a minority in the United States, they make up a majority of death row inmates in federal prisons. Sixty-Seven percent of people awaiting capital punishment in federal prisons are black.

The Angela Johnson case might tilt public opinion in favor of the death penalty in Iowa, because it is a very emotional case.

A bill to reinstate the death penalty was introduced this year in Iowa, after a Cedar Rapids girl was molested and murdered by a convicted sex offender. The bill was never voted upon, but there is a chance the issue will be brought up again next year.

An examination of some recent trends in capital punishment across the United States highlights flaws in states that have tried the death penalty.

Last June, a Court of Appeals struck down the death penalty in New York. Illinois currently has a moratorium in place on the death penalty, because there have been faults found in the system. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year to abolish the death penalty for juveniles.

All these changes are modifications trying to fix a flawed system, but they fail. We would like to see the Supreme Court ruling that prohibits capital punishment for juveniles extended to everyone in every state. We would definitely not like to see capital punishment reinstated in Iowa.