Marc Hyden

Today, support for the death penalty is at a 40-year low and distrust for the government is near an all-time high.

Many conservatives, including Oliver North, Ron Paul, Michael Steele, Jay Sekulow, and myself, find the death penalty to be a violation of the deepest-rooted conservative principles – protecting innocent life, fiscal responsibility, and limited government. In a time when conservatives across the nation are reconsidering their support for capital punishment, Florida lawmakers are moving in the wrong direction.

Florida’s broken death penalty system is just as flawed, if not more, than the other 31 states, that still have capital punishment on their books. Nationally, more than 140 individuals have been wrongly convicted, sentenced to die, and later released. Florida has more wrongful capital convictions than any other state, which is a disturbing distinction.

The cost of the death penalty is repugnant. It costs millions more dollars to execute someone than to sentence someone to life-without-parole. It has been estimated that Florida could save more than $50 million a year by replacing the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole. This is a taxpayer-funded program with a terrible return on investment. The death penalty, as many studies have shown, doesn’t reduce murder rates, and the long, drawn-out system retraumatizes murder victims’ friends and family members.

Lawmakers in Florida know that the death penalty is a massive drain on the state’s coffers. That’s why the Timely Justice Act was passed. Its intent was to speed up the process and make the death penalty cheaper by limiting the appeals process. Unfortunately, when you limit appeals, you virtually guarantee that an innocent person will be executed. If this law had been implemented earlier, many men would likely have been wrongly executed by the state.

The most recent case is that of Paul Hildwin who has spent nearly three decades on Florida’s death row. The state’s highest court recently overturned his death sentence because of new DNA evidence implicating another person. Had the Timely Justice Act been on the books 30 years ago, Mr. Hildwin would likely have been killed by the state. This is the type of thing that makes conservatives shudder.

Floridians are smart to be skeptical of this kind of immense government authority because the power to take a life is the greatest of all. Taxpayers understand that faith in the government is not absolute, and the government makes mistakes. Except when a gaffe is committed with the death penalty system, an innocent person is killed by the state.

Florida can do better and must do better, but state laws aid in the failure of the death penalty. Florida is one of only two states that accept a simple majority jury consent to sentence someone to die. Most states require unanimous jury consent. This only increases the odds of executing someone who shouldn’t be.

Florida is a leader in many ways, but its death penalty system is one of the worst in the nation. It is horribly inefficient, wrongly convicts more people than any other state, fails to keep Floridians safe, and harms murder victims’ family members. It’s time to discuss whether we, as conservatives, can justify the human and fiscal cost of the death penalty especially when it violates our central principles.

Marc Hyden is the National Advocacy Coordinator with Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, a Project of EJUSA. His immediate prior position was with the National Rifle Association where he served as a campaign field representative in the Florida Panhandle. Hyden is scheduled to speak to the College Republicans from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in Commons Room 260 on the main campus at the University of West Florida in Pensacola.