Budget Concerns Force Another Look At The Death Penalty
In this time of economic turmoil some legislators in Kansas and elsewhere say the price of justice is too high. They have introduced legislation to take the death penalty off the books over financial concerns. CNN reports.
“Because of the downturn in the national economy, we are facing one of the largest budget deficits in our history,” state Sen. Carolyn McGinn, a Republican, said in an opinion piece posted on TheKansan.com Friday. “What is certain is we are all going to have to look at new and creative ways to fund state and community programs and services.” The state would save more than $500,000 per case by not seeking the death penalty, McGinn wrote, money that could be used for “prevention programs, community corrections and other programs to decrease future crimes against society” …
A 2008 study by the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy research group based in Maryland, found that an average capital murder trial in the state resulting in a death sentence costs about $3 million, or $1.9 million more than a case where the death penalty is not sought. A similar 2008 study by the ACLU in Northern California found that a death- penalty trial costs about $1.1 million more than a non-death-penalty trial in California …
New Mexico, which also has a bill before the Legislature to abolish the death penalty, has already seen a case where costs dictated the outcome. Last year, the New Mexico attorney general’s office agreed to drop the death penalty for two inmates involved in the stabbing death of a guard, Ralph Garcia, during a 1999 riot at the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility. The change came after the state Legislature failed to provide additional funding for defense attorneys contracted to handle the case by the public defender’s office. In court documents filed at the time, Attorney General Gary King said his office could not “in good faith under these circumstances” pursue the death penalty against Robert Young and Reis Lopez …
In Colorado, House Bill 1274 proposes to put the anticipated savings from abolishing the death penalty toward the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s cold case homicide team.
Other States with bills for an economic end to the death penalty include Washington, Montana, Nebraska, Texas and New Hampshire.
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