Since the full Legislature last discussed the death penalty, in 1988, DNA testing has provided a reality check on the reliability of the justice system.

The results showed that errors were far more frequent than most people believed. Nationally, scores of people — including some on death row —  have been cleared of their crimes.

In light of that new information,the Journal Star endorses LB476, the bill introduced by Sen. Ernie Chambers that would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole and an order of restitution. Our support for the bill reverses nearly a decade of support for the death penalty. We believe a change in position is justified by the new facts.

The precise number of people who have been cleared by DNA testing is the subject of some controversy. The Innocence Project reports that, since 1989, 197 convictions have been overturned by DNA analysis. That figure is challenged by some who argue that reversal of a conviction does not necessarily prove innocence.

But there’s no doubt that some who were released on the basis of DNA testing were completely exonerated and actually were innocent.

Kirk Bloodsworth, the first convict exonerated by DNA, spent 10 years on death row for the savage murder and rape of a 9-year-old girl. DNA testing freed him in 1993.

And Bloodsworth, a former Marine with no previous criminal record, didn’t get off on a mere technicality. He didn’t have anything to do with the crime. Ten years later, DNA from the crime scene identified Kimberly Ruffner as the murderer.

“If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone,” said Bloodsworth, who now works to abolish the death penalty.

Some may contend that DNA evidence will help lower the system’s error rate in the future. That may be true, but DNA analysis is not possible in all cases.

Meanwhile, consider all the possibilities for the system to go awry. DNA analysis has shown how often eyewitnesses are mistaken. But even scientific evidence can be compromised. The FBI lab a few years ago admitted to providing false results. Police officers have been convicted of lying on the stand. Sometimes suspects are manipulated into false confessions, as occurred recently in the death of a Murdock couple.

Some defenders argue that the system is still accurate enough, that the number of death penalty cases reversed by DNA is less than one-half of 1 percent.

But would you get on a plane knowing the odds were 1 in 200 that your flight could end in death?

Rather than risk putting innocent people to death, the Legislature should replace the death penalty with life in prison with no possibility of parole. At least then a mistake could be corrected before it’s too late.