As the Pennsylvania General Assembly wound down to its June 30 deadline and summer break, concerned citizens of the Commonwealth could reasonably expect that issues of great concern would be on the agenda.

Unfortunately, the legislature wasted taxpayer money and time on June 21 debating and passing a resolution condemning the French town of St.- Denis for naming a street for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer (R-Blair) stated that the street naming is "the most offensive thing" he had ever seen and that it is "an affront to the system of justice." Unfortunately, there are numerous problems with our criminal justice system- and the death penalty, in particular- that are more offensive and a greater affront to the system than the naming of a street in an obscure French town.

It's offensive and an affront to justice that Walter Ogrod of Philadelphia is still on Pennsylvania's death row. Walter was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1988 murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. A witness who spoke with the killer (not knowing at the time that he was the killer) described someone 5- to-8 inches shorter than Walter and with different color hair.

Walter was convicted in part by a confession he claimed was coerced out of him by two Philadelphia detectives. He visited the police station after working an all-night shift and had been awake a total of 30 hours when he made this so-called confession, which was witnessed only by the two police officers.

At trial, the defense shot holes in the case. Walter was seconds away from walking away a free man from this nightmare, but one juror blurted out, "I disagree," as the jury foreman was reading the "not guilty" verdict. The judge declared a mistrial, and in the interim between the mistrial and the retrial, a jailhouse snitch emerged to weave a tall tale about Walter's connection to the crime. This snitch, John Hall, carried the nickname "The Monsignor" because he had heard more confessions than a priest and had made a career of obtaining jailhouse confessions for otherwise-weak cases.

It is offensive and an affront to justice that Dennis Counterman of Allentown is still sitting in prison. Dennis was convicted and sentenced to death for a house fire that killed his three young sons. At the scene, Dennis's wife, Janet, told police that Dennis was sleeping and that one of the boys had told her that there was a fire downstairs. Witnesses at the scene saw Dennis on the roof trying to get back into the house to save the boys. Neighbors told police that one of the boys had set fires in the past. Forensics evidence showed that chemicals in the furniture and the carpet acted as an accelerant.

In an act of extreme prosecutorial misconduct, all of this evidence was withheld from the defense by the prosecution. Dennis won a new trial in 2000, but prosecutors have fought every court decision that has gone against them since then, denying Dennis his right to a speedy trial. He sits in Lehigh County prison today.

It is offensive and an affront to justice that people are sentenced to die in Pennsylvania on the basis of no physical evidence and shaky eyewitness testimony. According to the Innocence Project, faulty eyewitness testimony played a role in 75% of the cases in which innocent people are cleared by DNA evidence.

The case of Samuel Randolph of Dauphin County is one case in which one could draw at least reasonable doubt due to an unreliable eyewitness. A Dauphin County jury convicted and sentenced Samuel to death in 2003 for a 2001 bar shooting. In the early stages of the investigation, all of the witnesses told investigators that they could not see the shooter's face because he wore a mask. Only when one witness came up on unrelated charges did his story changed to implicate Samuel.

On June 28, Governor Rendell signed a death warrant for Samuel Randolph's execution.

As the above examples make clear, the Commonwealth has big problems to tackle. For the sake of justice, the General Assembly would do well to take on these problems as fiercely as it took on St.-Denis, France.

Andy Hoover is the co-chair of Pennsylvanians For Alternatives to the Death Penalty and president of Central Pennsylvanians to Abolish the Death Penalty.