Counsellor Svein Michelsen, point person on human rights at the Norway Mission (left), and Ambassador Morten Wetland (centre/right). Photo: Norway UN Mission/Emma K Lydersen
15/11/2010 // The UN General Assembly has called on member states to establish a moratorium on executions as a step towards the abolition of the death penalty. Norway, in cooperation with a group of countries from all parts of the world, led the initiative, which was supported by 107 countries.
“This UN resolution confirms that countries that support the death penalty are fighting a losing battle. But a UN resolution is by no means enough. I am therefore pleased that we have managed to get this difficult debate back on a more constructive track that we can follow up in our contact with countries that are considering changing their policy on this issue,” Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said.
Norway played a leading role in the negotiations in New York, together with countries such as Angola, Argentina, Belgium, Burundi, Croatia, East Timor, Micronesia and New Zealand. The aim of the initiative was to encourage more countries to support the call for establishing a moratorium on executions as a step towards the abolition of the death penalty. The resolution received broad support from countries in all parts of the world, reflecting a global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty. A total of 107 countries voted in favour of the resolution, while 38 countries voted against and 36 abstained. This time, ten fewer countries voted against the resolution than when the issue was considered by the UN General Assembly in 2008. Then, a total of 105 countries supported the resolution.
Altogether, 58 countries still retain the death penalty in their penal legislation, while we know for certain that 18 countries carried out executions in 2009.
“There are still a large number of cases involving use of the death penalty that go unreported. The text that was adopted today also calls on states to show greater transparency with regard to their use of the death penalty. In the long term, this could foster an open debate based on facts,” Mr Støre commented. In connection with the debate on the resolution, a number of countries said that they were in the process of reducing the number of crimes that can carry the death penalty. Whether or not to continue executions is now being discussed in many countries, but the issue is still highly controversial in the UN. Some countries that still practise the death penalty insist that this is a domestic issue that should not be discussed in the UN.
“The death penalty is a human rights issue that affects us all. At the end of the day it is up to individual countries to abolish the death penalty, but Norway’s view on the issue remains unchanged. We raise Norway’s opposition to the death penalty at regular intervals in our talks with countries that still carry out executions. The campaign against the death penalty is a priority task for Norwegian missions abroad, both in individual countries and in international organisations,” Foreign Minister Støre said.
Updated March 27, 2010
Just or Not, Cost of Death Penalty Is a Killer for State Budgets
By Ed Barnes
- FOXNews.com
Capital murder trials and death row boondoggles are wreaking havoc on budgets across the country as many states are now rethinking the death penalty, which is enormously costly and rarely imposed even after successful prosecutions.
Every time a killer is sentenced to die, a school closes.
That is the broad assessment of a growing number of studies taking a cold, hard look at how much the death penalty costs in the 35 states that still have it.
Forget justice, morality, the possibility of killing an innocent man or any of the traditional arguments that have been part of the public debate over the death penalty. The new one is this:
The cost of killing killers is killing us.
"There have been studies of costs of the death penalty before, but we have never seen the same reaction that we are seeing now," says Richard C. Dieter of the non-partisan Death Penalty Information Center. "Perhaps it is because governments are looking for ways to cut costs, and this is easier than school closings or layoffs, but it sure has hit a nerve."
In the last year, four states — Kansas, Colorado, Montana and Connecticut — have wrestled with the emotional and politically charged issue. In each state there was a major shift toward rejection of the death penalty and narrow defeats for legislation that would have abolished it. In Connecticut, both houses actually voted in favor of a bill that would have banned executions, but the governor vetoed it.
Unlike past debates over executions, the current battles are fueled largely by the costs the death penalty imposes on states. The numbers, according to the studies, are staggering.
Overall, according to Dieter, the studies have uniformly and conservatively shown that a death-penalty trial costs $1 million more than one in which prosecutors seek life without parole. That expense is being reexamined in the current budget crisis, with some state legislators advocating a moratorium on death-penalty trials until the economy improves.
An Urban Institute study of Maryland's experience with the death penalty found that a single death-penalty trial cost $1.9 million more than a non-death-penalty trial. Since 1978, the cost to taxpayers for the five executions the state carried out was $37.2 million dollars — each.
Since 1983, taxpayers in New Jersey have paid $253 million more for death penalty trials than they would have paid for trials not seeking execution — but the Garden State has yet to execute a single convict. Of the 197 capital cases tried in New Jersey, there have been 60 death sentences, the report said, and 50 of the those convictions were overturned. There currently are 10 men on the state's death row.
A recent Duke University study of North Carolina's death penalty costs found that the state could save $11 million a year by substituting life in prison for the death penalty. An earlier Duke study found that the state spent $2.1 million more on a death penalty case than on one seeking a life sentence.
The Tennessee Comptroller of the Currency recently estimated that death penalty trials cost an average of 48 percent more than trials in which prosecutors sought life sentences.
It was much the same story in Kansas. A state-sponsored study found that death penalty cases cost 70 percent more than murder trials that didn't seek the death penalty.
A Florida study found the state could cut its costs by $51 million simply by eliminating the death penalty.
But no state matches the dilemma of California, where almost 700 inmates are sitting on death row and, according to Natasha Minsker, author of a new report by the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, few will ever actually be put to death. In fact, she says, the odds against being executed are so great, murder suspects in California actually seek the death penalty because it is the only way to get a single room in the state's prison system.
"Only 1 percent of people sentenced to death in California in the last 30 years have been executed," Minsker said. "The death penalty in California is purely a symbolic sentence."
Her study found that the cash-strapped state could immediately save $1 billion by eliminating the death penalty and imposing sentences of life without parole. The alternative, if the cash-strapped state keeps the death penalty: spend $400 million to build a new death-row prison to house the growing number of prisoners.
Minsker said just keeping prisoners on death row costs $90,000 more per prisoner per year than regular confinement, because the inmates are housed in single rooms and the prisons are staffed with extra guards. That money alone would cut $63 million from the state budget. But other savings would ripple through every step of the criminal justice system as well, from court costs to subsidized spending for defense attorney and investigation expenses.
Will the economic slump and every state's need to cut budgets have an impact? Death penalty opponents say the recession has given their effort a new, non-political reason for abolition that resonates on both sides of the debate. But Professor Paul Cassell, the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Utah and a death penalty expert, says that major changes are not likely to occur soon.
"You can make the argument that it is cheaper not to have the death penalty" he said, but that is not what the death penalty is about.
The death penalty "provides a sense of justice to the system, is a just punishment for murder and has a deterrent effect on crime," he said. "Besides, the amount of money saved is not that big compared to what the entire justice system spends."
"Moreover," he said, "polls show that 70 to 80 percent of people support the death penalty. And that isn't going to change."
Russia confirms death penalty ban
Russia's ban on the death penalty will remain when a current legal suspension expires on 1 January, the country's Constitutional Court has ruled.
It said the use of the death penalty was now impossible because Russia had signed international deals banning it.
Russian announced the moratorium in 1996 when it joined the Council of Europe, although it retains capital punishment in its criminal code.
Opinion polls suggest that a majority of Russians back the death penalty.
One recent survey showed that two-thirds of Russians backed the measure.
It said that one in four was against it, mainly because of the possibility that judges would make mistakes.
Chechnya jury trials
The court's head Valery Zorkin said that the end of the moratorium "does not make it possible to apply the death penalty on Russian territory".
He cited a number of international accords signed by Moscow, which banned the use of the capital punishment.
Mr Zorkin also said Russia must extend the moratorium on executions until it ratified Protocol Six of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits the use of the death penalty in peaceful times.
Russia's pledge to sign the protocol was a key condition of its membership in the Council of Europe in 1996.
However, the country's parliament is yet to officially outlaw executions.
In 1999 the Constitutional Court ruled that the death penalty could not be used until jury trials had been introduced in all of Russia's 89 regions.
Thursday's ruling was its response to the country's Supreme Court request, which had sought to clarify the future of the moratorium because the first jury trials would take place in Chechnya on 1 January.
Chechnya is the only remaining part of the Russian Federation where trials by jury have never been held.
Last week, President Dmitry Medvedev's representative at the Constitutional Court, Mikhail Krotov, said that the Kremlin was in favour of the gradual abolition of the death penalty.
Life or death: will Russia resume death penalty?
Published 05 October, 2009, 09:41
Russia’s moratorium on the death penalty expires early next year. While some want capital punishment outlawed completely, many still believe there are criminals who deserve it.
The arguments for and against the death penalty are well established. Most legal and criminal analysts insist capital punishment does little towards the problem of crime – what matters is the unavoidability of it.
Even though public support for the death penalty has fallen in Russia in recent years, several violent incidents in the past ten years keeps the issue very much in the limelight, making implementing a total ban a highly contentious issue.
The risk of a mistake
"The Butcher of Rostov" Andrey Chikatilo – the most infamous serial killer in Soviet history – was convicted of murdering 52 people, mostly women and children, and sentenced to death in 1994. His case is often quoted when Russians debate the merits of the death penalty – a subject that continues to ignite controversy.
State Duma deputy in 1994-1999 Valery Borshchev initiated a parliamentary hearing back in 1996, devoted to the moratorium on capital punishment. He is convinced its abolition benefits society and the justice system.
"The main problem is the shortcomings of our legal system – the risk of judicial error is too high," he said.
"It is common knowledge that two people who were convicted by mistake before Chikatilo was found and proved guilty. During my own career I managed to prove the innocence of three people who were sentenced to death, and even the mother of the victims was helping me clear the names of the wrongly accused."
Russia hasn’t performed an execution since the establishment of the moratorium thirteen years ago – one of the conditions for joining the Council of Europe.
However, with society polarized over the issue, lawmakers have been unable to pass legislation to outlaw the method completely.
Vladimir Lukin, Ombudsman for Human Rights, says he is against capital punishment.
"I understand that there are certain political conditions within the state that make its abolition difficult, but what matters right now is that Russia continues to refrain from using the death penalty."
"They deserve an unmarked grave"
A decade of terrorist attacks across the country has prompted some to demand the death penalty for those involved.
The only surviving member of the group responsible for the Beslan tragedy in 2004 that left 331 people dead, 186 of those children, was sentenced to life imprisonment. Many of those who lost their loved ones believe that all that Nurpashi Kulayev deserves is an unmarked grave.
There has also been strong public pressure for the execution of convicted serial killers, murderers and child abusers.
Chief investigator in the Chikatilo case, Issa Kostoyev – the man responsible for the capture of the murderer – wonders:
"How can we talk of humanity when a person murders his parents, his own children or someone is dismembered, or a child is raped?"
In his opinion, given the crime rate in Russia, the country cannot afford not to use capital punishment.
"I think no one would deny the United States is a democracy, but they still use it when deemed necessary."
The Kremlin is not in any hurry to see the controversial subject return to the political agenda, at least for now.
At the moment there are no plans to bring back the death penalty and revoke the moratorium, according to Natalya Timakova, spokeswoman to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Therefore, Russia is likely to stand by the ruling for the meantime.
man on death row in Pontiac, Ill., in 2003. Out of 36 states with the death penalty, Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas have considered bills this year to end it.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Cost is killing death penalty
In lean times, states consider abandoning capital punishment because life imprisonment is cheaper.
Deborah Hastings / Associated Press
After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the nation's highest court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong:
Money.
Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.
So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.
"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.
Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. What changed a mind so set on the ultimate punishment?
California's legendarily slow appeals system, which produces an average wait of nearly 20 years from conviction to fatal injection -- the longest in the nation. Of the nine convicted killers McCartin sent to death row, only one has died. Not by execution, but from a heart attack in custody.
In 2007, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1972.
Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine commuted the executions of 10 men to life imprisonment without parole. After spending an estimated $4.2 million for each death sentence, the state had executed no one since 1963.
Out of 36 states with the death penalty, Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas have considered bills this year to end it.
Capital Punishment: It's Not Justice
March 6, 2009
Once again, Connecticut lawmakers are debating whether to abolish this state's capital punishment statute. Once again, we say justice is best served if those convicted of capital crimes are sentenced to life in prison without parole instead of execution.
We say that while fully sympathizing with Dr. William Petit Jr., who spoke movingly at a legislative hearing Wednesday about the loss of his wife and two daughters, allegedly killed by two parolees during a home invasion in Cheshire in July 2007, and his belief that "any penalty less than death for murder is unjust." It is understandable that one who has suffered such a grievous loss would feel that way. The parolees charged in the crimes against the Petit family have yet to go to trial. The state's attorney plans to seek the death penalty.
In truth, the death penalty doesn't work very well. There are 10 men on Connecticut's death row, but the last person executed was Michael Ross in 2005, and he wanted to die. State Rep. Michael Lawlor, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, says no convicted killer in Connecticut is going to be executed "unless they want to be executed" because of delays and appeals. But it would be wrong for the state to take a life before the defendant exhausts all avenues of legal review.
Nationally, movement may be swinging toward repeal of death penalty statutes. Capital punishment is inequitably visited on racial minorities and poor defendants more than on whites and people who can pay for a good defense. Nationwide, a large number of wrongly convicted death row inmates have been released from prison in recent years when new DNA evidence proved they had no connection to the crimes for which they were found guilty.
Opponents of capital punishment also rightly point to the high costs of fighting appeals. And putting a convicted killer in prison for life allows for redemption if incontrovertible evidence of innocence is discovered, at the same time that it spares the state the moral burden of taking a life.
It’s Time, Again, to Abolish Capital Punishment
By K. Winge,
February 27, 2009
I rarely think about capital punishment. Living in a state that abolished the death penalty nearly 100 years ago, state-sponsored executions enter into my consciousness only when especially horrific cases generate media attention nationally. Lately, however, the topic has been on my mind.
Sean Penn, receiving the Academy Award for his performance in Milk, got me thinking about his earlier Oscar-nominated turn in Dead Man Walking, the film adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean’s book that chronicles her experiences counseling prisoners on death row. The day after the Academy Award ceremonies, I began jury duty where, while waiting in the jury assembly room, I listened to prospective jurors discuss their relief that they wouldn’t have to make a life or death decision in any trial they might end up judging. While waiting in that same assembly room (which is mostly what I did on jury duty) I read the recent New York Times’ article on states considering the abolishment of the death penalty as a potential cost saving measure.
Now, I know that the majority of Americans approve of capital punishment, but I don’t. Before writing me off as just another bleeding heart, let me say that I have no sympathy for people guilty of crimes for which they could be given the death penalty. Lock them up and throw away the key. There are certain crimes for which the perpetrator should never again see the light of day. However, the state should have no more say over who lives and who dies than does the person who murders someone.
Does anyone really believe that the death penalty deters crime? Do would-be murderers compose a list of pros and cons while considering the taking of a human life and then decide against it because of the possibility of execution? If that were true, wouldn’t we have seen a downturn in violent crime in states that carry out executions? Texas has been back in the execution business since 1982 and the number of executions there has increased in the past decade, not lessened.
The New York Times article (February 25, 2009) presents a current take on the subject. Many states are now considering repealing the death penalty to save tax-payer money in these tough economic times. I know common sense would indicate that it is cheaper to execute someone than it is to keep them in prison for decades, but that isn’t the case. In Maryland, one state that is considering repeal, it costs three times more to prosecute a death penalty case than it does to bring a case to trial where capital punishment is not sought. The solution for some is to not repeal capital punishment, but to limit the convicted person’s right of appeal. But do we really want to hurry justice at the risk of executing an innocent person? Capital punishment is a permanent decision which, as we know, has occasionally been proven to make mistakes. There is no altering the outcome of an execution if future DNA results exonerate the executed.
Perhaps no part of America’s judicial system better demonstrates the two systems of justice in this country than the death penalty. There is a system for those with power and privilege, and a system for those who lack access to the resources, the education, and the connections that those with power and privilege have. Of course, this assumes that capital punishment is about justice, when perhaps what it’s really about is vengeance.
Lawrence Foster listens to his son, Kenneth Foster
Legislator proposes bill to halt the death penalty for those in murderers’ company
Representative hopes proposal will eventually end capital punishment
Matt Stephens
Daily Texan Staff
Published: Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Updated: Wednesday, February 25, 2009
On August 30, 2007, Gov. Rick Perry commited death row inmate Kenneth Foster Jr. to life imprisonment. Foster had been on death row for 10 years for the August 1996 murder of Michael LaHood Jr., a crime he did not commit.
"I don’t think he should be there now," said his father, Kenneth Foster Sr. "He should be out here with his family."
Foster was charged with the murder under the Texas Law of Parties, which convicts anyone in the murderer’s party as if he or she had committed the crime.
Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, presented a bill Tuesday that would end death penalty sentences under the Law of Parties.
Foster’s grandfather, Lawrence Foster, said his grandson had no intent to commit murder and no idea that his friend, Mauricio Brown, had intended to murder LaHood.
While driving with two other friends, Brown spotted LaHood’s girlfriend and asked Foster to stop the car. Despite Foster’s best efforts, Brown left the car and approached the woman. At some point in the conversation, LaHood approached the two and during a fight, Brown drew a firearm and killed LaHood.
Foster’s grandfather said his grandson did not know Brown was carrying a gun and that he did not see the shot fired.
The other two men in the vehicle, Dwayne Dillard and Julius Steen, faced lighter sentences, because they assisted police in the investigation of Foster and Brown.
"The court said he should have anticipated what he was going to do," Lawrence said. "But can you anticipate what I’m going to do when I leave here today?"
Dutton said there have been at least 12 people executed under the Law of Parties and possibly as many as 20. He said he has seen cases in which a convicted murderer had been released from prison while members of his party were still on death row.
Twenty-five other states have the Law of Parties, but Texas is the only state that allows the death penalty for defendants convicted under the Law of Parties.
"Nobody knows that you could just be along for the ride and be executed by the death penalty," Dutton said. "Today, we’re asking the whole Legislature to do what they did for Kenneth Foster."
Dutton said that legislation has passed each session since he became a representative in 1985 that narrowed laws involving the death penalty in Texas. Dutton said that he hopes the death penalty will be abolished in Texas in the future and he believes the state has turned the corner.
"People are starting to understand the difference between factually innocent and legally guilty," he said. "Just because a jury found them guilty and they were arrested for a crime didn’t mean they did anything."
Dutton said there are many other problems with the death penalty in Texas, including poor crime labs, prosecutors who withhold evidence and inadequate judges.
"These are problems that beg people to get involved," he said.
By David Atwood, Founder of TCADP (Click on book to Purchase)
February 24, 2009
"Detour to Death Row" is the story of David Atwood - a retired oil company engineer, committed Christian, student of nonviolence and tireless activist - and his 15-year effort to abolish the death penalty in Texas. It is also the story of the people he met on his journey: men and women on death row, their families, the families of the victims, and fellow death penalty activists across the globe. It is the story of a failed system of retribution and a story of hope that there is a better way of justice.
"Dave Atwood's Detour to Death Row is an incredible journey which shows what can happen to a person who allows God to enter his life and lead him on different path. Who would have thought that an engineer working for an oil company would one day be leading the fight to abolish the death penalty in the state which leads the nation in executions? Dave's story is an inspiration to me, personally, and to anyone who believes in the sanctity of all human life." Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of Dead Man Walking (Random House, 1993) and The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions (Random House, 2004)
I had the honor to meet David Atwood and fight along side of him in this struggle to abolish the Death Penalty. We actually walked through Houston, Texas together where he taught me exactly how the un-just system there works. He knew it so well at his word we avoided arrest by seconds for taking photos outside the Harris County Jail.
Dave is an incredible man believe me and so is his book. In the past few months I have read a dozen or so books on the death penaly and this book here was by far one of the best. It's a must read for anyone that is looking to, or is already fighting against this killing machine they call capital punishment. Don't just buy yourself a copy, buy a few for friends and neighbors. This is the lot of the information we need the public to know and understand. DON'T HESITATE! CLICK ON THE BOOK AND PURCHASE NOW! Peace and progress, in struggle. 305375
Protesters Matt Sellamn, left, Beth Panilaitis, second from left, Henry Earl IV, center and an unidentified protestor from England, right, demonstrate outside the Greensville Correctional Center after Edward Nathaniel Bell was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 9:11pm in Jarratt, Va., Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
February 19, 2009
Statement of Governor Kaine on the Scheduled Execution of Edward Nathaniel Bell
RICHMOND – Governor Timothy M. Kaine issued the following statement today on the scheduled execution of Edward Nathaniel Bell by the Commonwealth of Virginia:
"Edward Nathaniel Bell was tried by a jury in the Circuit Court of Winchester, Virginia and found guilty on January 25, 2001, of the capital murder of Winchester City Police Officer Richard Timbrook. The jury also found Bell guilty of the use of a firearm in the commission of murder, possession of a firearm while in possession of cocaine, and possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute. In two separate sentencing hearings culminating on January 26, 2001, the jury sentenced Bell to death for capital murder and to prison sentences for his non-capital offenses.
"After denials of direct relief and Bell's habeas petition from the Virginia Supreme Court, the United States District Court and the Fourth Circuit, Bell filed a petition for a writ of certiorari and an application for a stay of execution in the United States Supreme Court. On April 1, 2008, I reprieved Bell's execution to June 24, 2008, because the U.S. Supreme Court was then considering the constitutionality of using lethal injection as a method of execution.
"The U.S. Supreme Court then granted Bell's stay of execution and his petition for a writ of certiorari to review one claim regarding the standard of review utilized by the Fourth Circuit. On November 12, 2008, the case was argued before the Court. On November 17, 2008, the Court dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, and on December 19, 2008, entered its final judgment dismissing the case.
"Bell's trial, verdict, and sentence have been reviewed by state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court of Virginia, United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. Having carefully reviewed the petition for clemency and judicial opinions regarding this case, I find no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was recommended by the jury, and then imposed and affirmed by the courts.
"Accordingly, I decline to intervene."
Testimony Before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee On the Repeal of Capital Punishment in Maryland
February 18, 2009
Mr. Chairman.
Members of the Committee, two years ago I came before you to testify on an issue that touches the very soul of who we are as a Republic. Who we are as a people.
The question of whether to replace Maryland’s criminal death penalty with the punishment of life without parole is one for which good people on both sides disagree. I believe it is a question that historians will consider one of the defining moral quandaries of our times as they look back and ask what kind of society we were in 2009.
When you gave me the opportunity to come before you two years ago, I provided facts and figures which demonstrated that the death penalty is an expensive and utterly ineffective tool in deterring violent crime.
Today, this fact has been confirmed by the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment. A Commission which, under the leadership of Chairman and former United States Attorney General Civiletti, held hours of hearings and considered days of testimony. As I said during the State of the State, the Commission acted with dedication, fairness, and a respect for differences of opinion.
The Commission found that for every 8.7 Americans sent to death row, there has been one innocent person exonerated. It was near unanimous in reporting that quote “the administration of the death penalty clearly shows racial bias” and it found no administrative fixes that could end these disparities. It found that the cost to taxpayers of pursuing a capital case was three times as much as the costs of pursuing a non-death penalty homicide conviction ($3 million versus $1.1 million) – funds we otherwise could invest in preventing future crimes or assisting victims’ families.
It is our time in Maryland for a deeper public dialogue on the question of what kind of society we want to be. What kind of society we hope to leave for our children. What kind of society we are choosing to build for our families, for our communities, and for future generations. It is time to ask whether public executions – even of the guilty – are consistent with the future we prefer for our children’s world.
Our free and diverse republic was founded not on fear and retribution – it was born from higher things; rooted in unalienable rights endowed by our Creator. Freedom, justice, the dignity of the individual, equal rights before the law – these are the principals that define our character as a people. And so we must ask ourselves: are these principles compatible with the “civil” taking of human life? Are these principles compatible with the very real risk of erroneously taking the life of an innocent neighbor?
Will we be a society guided by the notion that two wrongs somehow make a right? Or will we be a society guided by the fundamental civil and human rights bestowed on humankind by God?
I submit to you that as the Chief Executive of Baltimore City for 7 years, I was witness to horrendous crimes against humanity, against nature, against our children. Crimes that cried out for justice. Crimes that cried out for vigilance, public condemnation and public grief. Crimes that made all of us want vengeance. And crimes that strengthened our resolve to fight even harder to give our kids safer playgrounds and neighborhoods and a better tomorrow.
In the entire time that the City of the Baltimore slipped into becoming the most violent and drug addicted City in America, the death penalty was on the books and did absolutely nothing to prevent these awful crimes we witnessed.
Nothing.
It did absolutely nothing to save lives. It did absolutely nothing to reduce violent crime or restore our community’s confidence and belief in our system of justice,… the death penalty didn’t do any of this. It was not the death penalty that brought our people together so we could reduce violent crime by 40%.
And last year, when together as One Maryland we were able to achieve the second largest reduction in homicides since 1985, the death penalty had absolutely nothing to do with that life-saving work. Our strength and resolve and will as a people – our innate Revolutionary desire to work and sacrifice for a better tomorrow – is what guided us through our partnerships to save 66 lives last year.
The death penalty did not prevent our State from becoming the 4th most violent State in America; and it was absolutely no help in moving us down that ranking to 8th in these most recent years.
We are a people who are united in our belief in the dignity of the individual and we are a people who recognize that each of us has within ourselves and our communities both a responsibility and an ability to advance the common good. This is who we truly are as a people.
The death penalty is fundamentally and irredeemably incompatible with the most important foundational truths of our Republic.
Mr. Chairman, Members of this Committee I urge you to consider both the empirical evidence and these higher truths. I urge you to give the repeal a fair up-or-down vote before the Senate. And I urge you to vote (and to persuade your colleagues to vote) to repeal capital punishment in Maryland.
February 18, 2009 Wednesday
Carrying out the death penalty can leave a state footing a bill that is 10 times higher than for an inmate serving life imprisonment.
WASHINGTON - IN AN unexpected twist to the economic crisis, several US states are weighing whether to abolish the death penalty as the execution process proves too great a drain on dwindling resources.
Death penalty laws remain on the books of 36 of the 50 US states, and capital punishment is supported by some two-thirds of the American public. But across the nation, states as diverse and far-flung as Montana, Kansas, New Mexico and Maryland are among those actively considering abolishing capital punishment in a bid to overcome ballooning budget shortfalls.
Most of the states involved in the move are those which have only executed a few people - five or less - in the past 30 years since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. But 'state legislators across America seem to be re-examining the death penalty,' said Steve Hall, director of the anti-capital punishment group Standdown.
The financial savings could be considerable. Carrying out the death penalty can leave a state footing a bill that is 10 times higher than for an inmate serving life imprisonment.
On top of a complex and lengthy process, appeals can last years and the prisoners are often represented by lawyers paid by the state. Guarding death rows and death chambers are also costly items on a state's budget.
In Kansas, which has not carried out a single execution since 1976 but has nine men on death row, financial concerns trump other considerations.
Republican state senator Caroline McGinn has proposed a bill banning the death penalty starting in July in order to reduce the state's budget deficit. 'The issue of cost is definitely an issue that legislators are looking at because of the severe economic recession (having) a significant impact on many states,' said activist Mr Hall.
'The state legislators are looking at ways to cut the funding, to pull themselves out of deficit, and the high cost of the death penalty is absolutely something that they are looking at.' Activists have calculated that in Kansas the cost of executing a prisoner is 70 per cent higher than keeping someone in prison. The bill for a death row inmate tops US$1.26 million (S$1.92 million), while for someone serving life imprisonment costs US$740,000, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
In New Mexico, politicians are hoping to pass a repeal law this year. The state, which has only executed one person in 30 years and has only two people on death row, could save a million dollars, observers say.
On Monday, Montana was debating a bill to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole, after years of failed efforts to repeal the law.
The northwestern state has only executed three people since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. And only two inmates are currently housed on its death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Activists who have long fought to replace lethal injection, the most common method of execution, with life in prison, could finally see their efforts bear fruit, and maintain that public opinion is also changing.
Dave Wanzenried, a Democratic senator who authored the Montana bill, said victims' families are increasingly opposed to the death penalty, arguing against punishing one killing with another.
Nebraska and New Hampshire lawmakers are also considering repealing the current laws, while Oklahoma and Utah are considering limits on the death penalty. Maryland, which has carried out five executions since 1976, seems closest to abolishing the death penalty with the support of governor, Martin O'Malley.
According to figures from the DPIC, those five executions cost the state some US$37.2 million. -- AFP
