Whereas the study examined all overturned capital verdicts, the critique reasons that only appellate reversals that overturn convictions, rather than death sentences while retaining the conviction, should constitute evidence that the system is "broken." By proposing to count only conviction error and not sentence error, the critique ignores that if a death sentence is overturned, the case is no longer capital, so that the system of capital punishment has failed to achieve its central objective. The critique fails to understand that the law treats a State's decision to take life as more serious than any other trial decision. It regards trial error that makes the difference between a person's living or dying as unimportant and consigns it to a lower status than, for example, error that leads to convictions of one degree of homicide rather than another. A large body of law holds that "death is different," and that flaws in all other aspects of the criminal justice system pale in comparison to mistakes in meting out that punishment. The sentence of death is not just the "extra point after a touchdown. It's the whole ball game." Whereas the critique argues that the system is not "broken" because most of the 68 percent of reversals involve negation of the death sentence rather than reversal of the conviction, it fails to be shocked that decisions to put people to death are so frequently ridden with reversible error. Such a shocking finding is certainly grounds for concluding that the capital system in America is "broken." 5 footnotes