Can Oregon afford the death penalty?

[stevedeshazer]

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/can_oregon_afford_the_death_pe.html


Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

A lethal-injection gurney sits ready at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Oregon juries have imposed 73 death sentences since voters reinstated the death penalty in 1984, but only two inmates have been executed. Both volunteered.
In 1988, 18-year-old Randy Lee Guzek became the youngest person in Oregon history on death row.

Today, Guzek has another distinction: Oregon's most expensive death row inmate. The taxpayers' tab for Guzek's legal bills stands at $2.2 million -- and it's still growing.

An-eye-for-an-eye justice is no bargain for Oregon taxpayers. Although Guzek's case is the most expensive, the 34 other inmates on Oregon's death row aren't there cheaply. At just the initial trial court level, the average cost of defending a capital murder case is nearly 10 times the cost of a case without the possibility of a death sentence. And each condemned criminal gets 10 state and federal levels of appeal.

With legal costs mounting and the state in financial distress, questions about the morality of the government executing convicted killers are being shoved aside for a new debate: Can Oregon afford the death penalty?

more @ link

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Not only is the death penalty wrong, it costs too much!

[classof56]

1. Randy Guzek is a master at "gaming the system" if that's the right phrase.

Read the article. Read the comments. Google his name. Death penalty convictions are automatically appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court. Try reading the trial transcripts of these cases if you can stomach them. I won't go into detail about some of the criminals on death row, but I'm guessing there are no "innocents" among them. Especially heinous are the crimes involving children. Perhaps emotion should not drive the decisions of jurors or anyone else, but damn, they do come into play. As long as the death penalty is an option, there are those crimes egregious enough to cause a jury to levy the death penalty, and I'm guessing they do not do so lightly.

I'm no death penalty fan, but for heaven's sake, let's make it so that these genuine monsters will never venture outside prison walls. Let's make it life without possibility of parole, so we don't have to keep revisiting their crimes over and over. I am not sure this will be any less expensive than the death penalty seems to be, but perhaps it would be worth it to never have to hear their names again. The families of victims seek justice, and for many of them that means killing the monster that committed the crime. But perhaps they would be satisifed with life without possibility of parole so that they don't have to keep reliving the horror that befell someone they loved by endless appeals, never-ending reminders of the crimes and associated suffering. In my opinion, as an Oregon taxpayer, that would be worth whatever it costs.

[stevedeshazer]

7. I've read extensively on the Guzek case.

I don't blame the families of the victims for feeling the way they do, for these were horrific crimes, which Guzek's partners were willing to rat him out for in order to save their own asses.

Nevertheless, life without parole must surely be cheaper than spending millions on appeals.

I doubt Guzek will ever be executed.

[LWolf]

2. Nobody can afford the death penalty,

and this Oregonian opposes it.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. right. It's too expensive for any state.

[tabbycat31]

4. and a few have since abolished it due to costs

Oregon should join NJ and NM there

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. agreed n/t

[customerserviceguy]

6. If we simplified the appeals process

and had all State and Federal challenges brought up within a year of the conviction, to be decided within another year, and the final decision appealable only ONCE to the State and US Supreme Courts involved, maybe it wouldn't cost so damned much.

The only thing wrong with the death penalty in the cases of heinous killers is that twenty years from commission of the crime to carrying out of the sentence in less than 10% of the cases is that it loses any deterrent value.

[Athelwulf]

8. Should we try to out-Texas Texas? n/t

[customerserviceguy]

10. Maybe we should see if we can match Texas' efficiency

instead of trying to drag out things to the point where we have to consider the cost of justice too prohibitive. But, that's the game the murderer-coddlers are playing right now.

And I've lived in the NW, you'll get a completely fair trial in Oregon whereas I cannot say the same thing about Texas, necessarily. That's only because I don't really know anything about Texas.

All that DNA evidence that's been exonerating people? Well, it gives absolute certainty about others. It takes away the risk of executing an innocent person based on a faulty witness memory.

[Athelwulf]

9. Really hoping we repeal it! (For, what, the third time?) n/t