Mike Parker
Reporting

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(CBS) CHICAGO President Bush's top law enforcement officer seems to be softening his hard line on capital punishment.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who was Bush's legal advisor during dozens of executions when Bush was Governor of Texas, conceded in Chicago on Monday, that the system can stand some improving.

The U.S. Attorney General, the man often rumored to be the president's next choice for the U.S. Supreme Court, spoke Monday to the American Bar Association and later took issue with its stand against capital punishment.

"I believe in the death penalty," Gonzalez said.

Just hours before, the nation's lawyers had heard a scathing indictment of the death penalty from a member of the United States Supreme Court.

Justice John Paul Stevens told the ABA that he is disturbed by what he called "serious flaws" in the system, and by what he called the "substantial numbers of death sentences that have been imposed erroneously."

Questioned by reporters, Attorney General Gonzalez would not agree that the system is flawed, or as former Illinois Governor George Ryan once described it, "broken," but Gonzalez said he and President Bush think it can be changed.

“We ought to take advantage of changing technology such as DNA to ensure the fact that only the guilty are punished," Gonzalez said.

A professor of criminal law at George Washington University said Bush and Gonzalez should see to that.

"The federal government can provide adequate resources to the states so there can be competent representation, so there can be experts, so there can be scientific evidence," said law professor Stephen Saltzburg.

Gonzalez, who has been a hardliner on the death penalty, conceded Monday that it can be applied only if there is confidence that the system punishes the guilty, not the innocent.

He also said the accused in capital cases should be guaranteed competent legal help.