The Death Penalty
I'll state my position on capital punishment right up front. I fully support the death penalty. I've read all the statistics in regards as to whether or not death sentences are a deterrent, the racial imbalance of people on death row, the chance of a black person receiving a death sentence for killing a white person being greater than a whte person receiving a death sentence for killing a black person, etc., and I personally don't pay a whole lot of attention to them. For those that are interested, 61% of the people on death row are white, 23% are black, 14% are Hispanic, and 2% are designated as other (2004 Department of Justice figures). If you commit first degree pre-meditated murder, murder for hire, murder of law enforcement personnel while they are performing their duties, multiple or serial murders, or murder during the commission of another crime, you deserve to forfeit your own life as punishment. I'm also leaning toward allowing the death penalty for other crimes too, like running a continuing criminal enterprise when it falls under the RICO statutes, first degree rape, train wrecking, acts of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, and the clincher...If you are a three strikes and you're out criminal. If you are convicted of three subsequent violent felonies, with periods of incarceration between them, you can not be rehabilitated. You should receive the death penalty.

One of the arguments that opponents to the death penalty raise, is the cost associated with keeping a person on death row as opposed to the cost of incarceration of a sentence of life without parole. Keep in mind too, that a majority of death sentences get reduced to life sentences anyway. On an average, it costs $150 per day to house a prisoner on death row as compared to $90 a day to house them in general population. If the prisoner needs to be housed in a special isolation unit away from general population for their safety, the costs are about the same as the cost to house them on death row. Let's do some math here. Give or take a few years, a person spends about 15 years on death row before execution, which is 14 and nine tenths years too long. That comes out to: $150 X 365 X 15 = $273,750. Now lets see what the cost is for keeping a person given life without parole in prison for 40 years in general population, assuming that they were 30 when they were sentenced and were 70 when they died behind bars: $90 X 365 X 40 = $1,314,000. The prisoner would have to be on death row for 24 years before it cost the same as it would to keep a murderer serving life in prison for 40 years. If the person committed the murder when they were 20 and died behind bars when they were 80, the cost would be $1,971,000. If the inmate is kept in protective isolation for 40 years the cost would be $2,190,000, for 60 years it would be $3,285,000. That's a far cry from the $273,750 figure. Yes I do realize that there are other costs involved in capital cases, mostly being the cost of appeals. While it is necessary to make sure that the person that has been sentenced to death did commit the murder before they are executed, the limit of the state's appeal liability should be limited to whether or not the person really did commit the crime.

Many states pick up the tab for capital appeals, including all the technical appeals for rules of law, not just guilt or innocence. Since capital punishment is such a final thing, states should pick up the tab for appeals that determine whether or not the convicted person is truly guilty beyond a reasonable doublt. At the same time, the state shouldn't have to foot the bill for the seemingly endless rule of law appeals. Let the bleading heart liberal law firms put their money where their mouths are and provide pro bono legal representation to death row inmates for rule of law appeals. In addition, the state should be compelled to provide all evidence including all DNA evidence to the defense teams, and laws prohibiting the introduction of new evidence after a certain length of time following a conviction should be recinded. Those laws are subject to abuse by over zealous prosecutors who deliberately withhold evidence beneficial to the defense until after that statute of limitations runs out. If a prosecutor deliberately withholds evidence that could exonerate an individual, that person is wrongly convicted, and ends up being executed for a crime they didn't commit, that prosecutor should be charged with capital murder and upon conviction, executed too. If it is found that a prosecutor deliberately withheld evidence and the criminal is exonerated before they are executed, which is normally the case, that prosecutor should be convicted and sentenced to life without parole. Let him/her spend the rest of their life in general population in a maximum security facility. Let's see how long they last when the word gets out that they were prosecutors. You don't play with peoples' lives for personal political gain. If they are truely guilty let them suffer the consequences, but keep it fair. DNA is a wonderful thing, and has exonerated many people sitting on death row. It can't prove that you committed a crime, but it can prove that you didn't. If your DNA is not at the crime scene, you obviously didn't do it. You weren't there. On a positive note, there is nothing that I've read that shows any conclusive proof that anyone has been executed for a muder they didn't commit since the US Supreme Court allowed states to re-instate the death penalty in 1976. There have been speculations and rumors, but they have come from the anti-death penalty crowd, and I haven't seen them offer any proof that there has been a wrongful execution in America. It's all rhetoric and conspiracy theories that have no substance.

Now let's look at the deterrence factor: Does the death penalty deter people from committing murder? I believe it does for a variety of reasons. First there is the direct deterrence. It has been documented that the murder rate actually drops slightly for about two weeks following a well publicized execution. That's deterrence in my book. In addtion, let's look that the indirect deterrence factors: Take a look at California's last execution, the execution of Donald Beardslee.Beardslee was executed by lethal injection on January 19, 2005 for the 1981 murders of two young women,while he was on parole for a previous murder conviction in Missouri. He shot a 23 year old mother of two in the face and slit the throat of a 19 year old girl as revenge for a $189 drug debt claimed by another man. If Beardslee had been executed for the Missouri murder, those two young women would more than likely still be alive today. Let's look at Timothy McVeigh, who was executed by the federal government for the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh will never get out of prison and blow up another building. He's dead. John Wayne Gacey will never sodomize and kill another young boy, and bury them in his back yard. Ted Bundy will never rape and murder another college co-ed. You also have organized crime kingpins who run their enterprises from behind bars. If those individuals were dead, they wouldn't be able to do that.

Putting all this aside, let's look at what I feel is probably the main reason to support capital punishment. There are some crimes that are so heinous and disgusting that the people committing them deserve nothing less than death. Timothy McVeigh, John Wayne Gacey, Ted Bundy, previously mentioned, and then those that escaped execution due to court rulings; Charles Manson, Richard Speck and others. As I write this article, Connecticut is preparing for its first execution in over forty years. Serial killer Michael Ross was scheduled to be put to death at the end of January, but it's now back on hold again with more appeals in the works. Ross is a convicted serial killer/rapist. What is my interest in Connecticut? I was born and raised there. Connecticut is part of the liberal North East, so an execution in that state will be a milestone. However, I don't agree with the anti-death penalty crowd who whine that an execution in Connecticut will open the floodgates of executions thoughout New England. Connecticut has seven people on Death Row, and the only other New England state that has a death penalty is New Hampshire, and they currently have no one on Death Row. New Hampshire performed its last execution in 1939. Back in 1960, Connecticut performed its last execution taking the life of Joseph Taborsky, known as the mad dog killer. Taborsky went on a murder/robbery rampage after being released from prison where he had been serving time for other murders. He was originally sentenced to death for his first crime spree, but it was overturned on appeal, he served time, and was releaed on parole. The second time around, he had his date with the electric chair. There were very few anti-death penalty protestors that showed up at his execution. Even the anti-death penalty crowd was so disgusted by Taborsky, that they stayed away. In one article that I read about it, a spokesman for an anti-capital punishment group said, "Even though we are against the death penalty, this time we are remaining neutral. While we don't believe that it is a deterrent, and feel that most of the time the death penalty is unjustified, there are times where you just have to put out a fire." That's exactly what capital punishment is a lot of times. It is putting out a fire, and some fires are best extinguished as soon as possible for the good of society.

Here's an update: Connecticut finally put Michael Ross to death on Friday, May thirteenth. Ross murdered eight young women ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-five. He also raped seven of them. His crime spree ran from May, 1981 to June, 1984. He spent twenty-one years on Death Row, longer than all but two of his victims were on this earth. What is amazing to me, is the anti-death penalty protesters that showed up for his execution never once had anything to say about his victims. All they cried about was how Michael Ross was a victim.

There was never any question about Ross' guilt or innocence. He freely admitted committing the crimes, and fully supported his death sentence. The appeals were orchestrated by lawyers and family members in his behalf, without his consent. I hope that the families of his victims will now have some closure.