A recent article in Parade magazine looked at the cost of the death penalty, especially in light of the budgetary crises confronting most states in today's economy. New Mexico and New Jersey recently abolished the death penalty, and costs played a significant role in their decisions. New Mexico State Rep. Gail Chasey (D., Albuquerque) noted, “We can put that money toward enhancing law enforcement, public works, you name it." In New Jersey a commission found that using the alternative sentence of life without parole would save the state $1.3 million per inmate in incarceration costs alone because a death row facility requires more personnel to operate. Finally, a recent study in North Carolina found that the state could save at least $11 million a year by repealing the death penalty.
In 2009, 52 prisoners (out of the total 3,279 on death row across the country) were executed. “People tend to think, ‘Oh, you get the death penalty, then there’s an execution,’” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. “But more often than not, the death penalty turns out to be a very expensive form of life imprisonment." Read full text below.
Georgia Supreme Court's chief justice recently warned that cuts to the state budget are making it increasingly difficult for its courts to carry out their constitutionally mandated duties. Carol Hunstein announced during a state of the judiciary address that the court's backlog has grown as money has dwindled. In 2009, the judicial branch received less than eight-tenths of 1% of the total state appropriations. Hunstein said, "The consequences of these cuts … hit everyone, threatening the basic constitutional rights of civil litigants and criminal defendants as core court functions go by the wayside. And, according to the Wall Street Journal article, while judiciaries are being squeezed nationwide, 'Georgia's situation appears particularly severe.'" Hunstein also indicated that one superior court judge has 16 death penalty cases still pending, partly because of the elimination of funding for senior judges. In Fulton County, there are currently 183 murder cases awaiting trial, half of which are more than a year old. Chief Judge Dee Downs said of the situation, "This isn't justice. We're losing the rule of law."
The results of a poll of police chiefs recently featured in DPIC's report "Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis" is now available in the form of a slide presentation on the Web, suitable for use in workshops or discussion groups. The poll, commissioned by DPIC and conducted by R.T. Strategies of Washington, DC, surveyed a national sample of 500 randomly selected U.S. police chiefs on questions regarding the death penalty and reducing violent crime. Although the police chiefs did not oppose the death penalty philosophically, they found it to be an ineffective crime fighting tool. Among those surveyed, only 1% of the chiefs listed greater use of the death penalty as the best way to reduce violence. The poll also showed police chiefs ranking the death penalty as the least efficient use of taxpayers' money among programs to fight crime. Most of the police chiefs did not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder.
The Senate Judiciary Committee in Kansas recently advanced (7-4) legislation that would eliminate capital punishment in the state and replace it with a sentence of life without parole. Kansas enacted its current death penalty law in 1994, but has not executed anyone for more than 40 years. There are currently ten men on the state’s death row, though none are close to execution. The abolition legislation, which was originally introduced by Republican Sen. Carolyn McGinn to address the high costs of capital punishment, would only apply to future cases. Senator Tim Owens, chair of the Judiciary Committee, spoke of the bill's importance, "This is truly life and death that we're talking about. We need to have a vote." On January 29th, the 149th anniversary of Kansas joining the union as a free state, Senator David Haley (Kansas City-D) remarked in support of abolition, “I'm reminded of what Kansas is, and what we stand for. We have values in this chamber, and as a state, that I hope we live up to." The bill may be voted on by the full Senate soon.
Michael Traynor, President Emeritus of the prestigious American Law Institute (ALI), called the ALI’s recent withdrawal of its model death penalty law “a striking repudiation from the very organization that provided the blueprint for death penalty laws in this country.” He noted that the ALI had carefully reviewed the death penalty process, and that "Now, after searching analysis by our country's top legal minds, the institute has concluded that the system it created does not work and cannot be fixed." The ALI, with membership of more than 4,000 lawyers, judges and law professors, is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify and improve the law. Its model penal code became the prototype for death penalty laws across the United States after the old state laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1972. Last fall, Traynor noted, the ALI withdrew its support for the model death penalty law, effectively concluding that “we cannot devise a death penalty system that will ensure fairness in process or outcome, or even that innocent people will not be executed.”