Death penalty may die for lack of funds Joe Byrne

Published: Saturday March 7, 2009





Print This Email This The death penalty is barely surviving, a report by the Chicago Tribune found today. Struggling state budgets and the high cost of maintaining a capital punishment system are contributing to the lull in state-funded execution. The recent political sea change may also have an impact on the future of the death penalty.



Most of the debate surrounding the death penalty has nothing to do with cost. However, ignoring the expense of a drawn-out capital punishment trial has become dangerous for states with little extra cash. Death penalty trials are more expensive for several reasons. In most states, the law requires extra lawyers with strict experience requirements. Appeals can last almost indefinitely. Security costs are higher, and especially expensive procedures like DNA testing become justifiable when an inmate's life is on the line. And the inflexible price of state-run execution can fall heavily on small rural counties that are used to working on a smaller scale.



California has the largest death row in the nation, though only 13 people have been executed in 33 years. With the state deficit at nearly $15 billion, some lawmakers from both parties are coming together to reduce resources for capital punishment. The renovation of a $395 million death row prison may have its funding removed by a proposal from Jeff Denham and Jared Huffman, a Republican Senator and a Democrat Assemblyman. "The death row expansion is a bottomless money pit," Denham said in front of the aging prison.



There are other expenses incurred by the death penalty, as well. Louisiana - where twice as many people have been executed since 1976 - has no money left for the Orleans Parish district attorney's office. Following the successful suit of a man freed from death row because of improper prosecutorial conduct, the district attorney was ordered to pay $15m. They are considering bankruptcy.



In an uncommon marriage between social liberalism and fiscal conservatism, eight of the remaining 36 states that allow the death penalty are considering its abolition. A bill in the Colorado legislature proposes re-allocating death row money to help clear unsolved cases. A budget deficit in Kansas has one Republican lawmaker encouraging abolition, as well.



Already, the number of death sentences and executions is falling. A report by AP found that there were 111 death sentences passed nationwide in 2008, compared to 284 in 1999. There were 37 executions in 2008; 98 in 1999.



And if the death penalty really is going out of style, the outlook for those on death row is now only slightly less bleak. Contrary to popular belief, life imprisonment is a much more affordable sentence for a court to pass.







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