Today's image is Our Lady of Good Success.I found her during my trip to Ecuador last year.
The following editorial was in the Stockton Record this morning. I agree with the editors that the death penalty needs to go away, but for the very reasons I highlighted in red, not for the conclusion here.
You do the math: multiply 636 by $117,000. That comes out to $74.4 million, the amount California spends each year to house, feed and provide the numerous legal services each death row inmate requires.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California developed those shocking numbers. The ACLU claims that executing all those on death row would cost about $4 billion more than if they had just been given life without the possibility of parole.
But the ACLU numbers pale beside a 2005 study by the Los Angeles Times which put the per execution cost at $250 million.
Revised execution procedures have been released by state officials in a 42-page document that outlines what is to happen starting 45 days before the execution. The study results from a challenge by attorneys for Michael Angelo Morales, a convicted killer from San Joaquin County who's been on death row since 1981. He claimed the state's current three-drug lethal injection protocol was painful and constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Now begins a lengthy public comment period on the proposed procedures.
Whatever the actual number, there is no doubt it's at least in the tens of millions of dollars.
Can we really afford this? Has capital punishment simply become too expensive? That's the question being asked by at least eight of the 36 states with the penalty as they struggle to cut costs, increase revenue and staunch the red ink flowing from the recession.
That the death penalty enjoys considerable public support is without question. A 2006 Field Poll found that about two-thirds of Californians favor the death penalty, down from its highest level of 83 percent found by pollsters in 1985 and '86. Had the voters known the actual costs of capital punishment, likely the poll results would have been much different.
But this isn't about who supports it, the morality of the death penalty or the arguments about the techniques used. It's not about whether capital punishment deters crime. It's not about growing fears that we too often execute innocent people.
We're concerned about one thing: Money. And the question: Can we afford the death penalty?
We say no. California, with 636 condemned inmates - about 10 percent of all the nation's death row inmates - is notoriously slow in exercising the punishment. Capital punishment cases automatically are sent to the state Supreme Court, but that is only one step in what remains a long, complex, circuitous route between crime and punishment. With every step the costs pile up. More often than not, since death row inmates usually are without funds, taxpayers end up paying for the defense and prosecution.
Since it was reestablished by Supreme Court ruling in 1976, 13 men have gone to their death in California. (By contrast, Texas and Virginian have executed 540 inmates in that period, about 47 percent of total executions in the U.S..)
Since 1978, of the more than 3,500 men and women who received a life sentence without the possibility of parole in California, not one has been released (save those rare cases where individuals have been able to prove their innocence), the ACLU said.
There is little justice surrounding the death penalty. It is always delayed and delayed and delayed condemning the victim's family to twist in a sort of penalty purgatory. And there certainly is no justice for the taxpayers, who are paying the multimillion expense every condemned person represents.
California long ago should have ended this charade. Of 36 states with the death penalty, at least nine - Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas - are considering ending the practice, and costs mostly are what's behind their actions.
We should join them. And then send those who otherwise would have found themselves on death row into a prison black hole from which there is no escape, no possibility of parole. And then tell them daily they're not worth executing.
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You know, the more times I read this, the more I am amused by God’s sense of irony. As a society, we break His first commandment over and over again daily when we worship the almighty dollar. That He would put the idea in someone’s mind to use the high costs involved with the death penalty as an excuse to rid ourselves of it is pretty humorous. Using one evil to eradicate another, so to speak. And to let the ACLU think it is their idea is absolutely priceless!
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You know, the more times I read this, the more I am amused by God’s sense of irony. As a society, we break His first commandment over and over again daily when we worship the almighty dollar. That He would put the idea in someone’s mind to use the high costs involved with the death penalty as an excuse to rid ourselves of it is pretty humorous. Using one evil to eradicate another, so to speak. And to let the ACLU think it is their idea is absolutely priceless!
1 comment:
Hey there dad! I was reading grandma's blog and noticed she linked to yours. Anyway as you know I agree with you about the death penalty, and for similar reasons. But I think you're misinterpreting the intention behind the messaging of the ACLU. The reason they put out stats about how expensive the death penalty is is because they are tired of making moral arguments that no one agrees with, so they have decided to deign to economic arguments that people, for whatever reason, tend to listen to more. In truth, most of us anti-death penalty types could care less about how much it does or does not cost. We simply find it morally reprehensible. But we've exhausted ourselves relaying the same arguments: it doesn't serve as a deterrent to crime, it's inhumane, a black dude is more likely to be sentenced to death than a white dude for the same exact crime, innocent people have been executed, mentally ill people have been executed, etc etc. People don't seem to listen. But for some sick reason people DO listen to economic arguments. So fine - we emphasize that, because that's what makes people listen - it obviously made the editorial board of the newspaper listen. I can tell you, the ACLU could give a crap about how much money the death penalty costs taxpayers. Generally, those of us on the "left" aren't so concerned with taxes. We're concerned with people's rights, and we find the death penalty inhumane, unjust and useless. But since people still seem to want the death penalty despite all of that, we figure fine, let's see if people respond to an economic argument...and sadly, as you can see, they do.
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