Taking A Stand: Let’s use death penalty or lose it
I can understand the diligence the justice system dedicates to making sure a person sent to death row is actually the person who committed a crime worthy of death.
I can also understand the concerns of those who believe the death penalty is unfairly used to target the poor and minority people of our society as I don’t recall many rich people getting the needle anytime recently.
However, it baffles the mind to understand why we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect and safeguard the accused when the state has no plans to actually carry out a death sentence. We’re basically inflating the cost of a death penalty case when there’s no realistic expectation the execution will be carried out, even with the jury’s blessing.
Locally, prosecutors pulled out of seeking the death penalty against three men who burned a woman to death partly because they realized they would be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to convict men who would never feel the sting of the executioner’s needle. And they have a good point.
Why waste our tax money uselessly? Face it. The only way a person will ever get the death penalty in our gutless state system is if the police shoot them first.
People who burned a woman to death, and they’ve admitted it now by the way, deserve death. This was a perfect case for capital punishment.
However, our two-faced justice system saw that didn’t happen. Instead, we’ll have to pay to keep these murderers alive for the rest of their lives unless they catch the shank in prison.
Folks, this system is doing no favors for any of us. It’s not deterring crime since it’s never carried out except for that one guy they killed a few years ago. For a punishment to be a deterrent, it must be stiff and it must be swift. Presently, it is neither, and, folks around the state know the death penalty is a joke, an expensive joke.
Ask folks if it’s a joke in Texas. When the judge reads off your execution date in court in the Lone Star State, you can go ahead and get your headstone carved because that’s going to be the day you meet your maker.
I know death row is no country club in Tennessee since membership to the finest country club is cheap when compared to what it takes to house a death row inmate. Yes, to keep an inmate on death row costs more than it costs annually to be a member of the Augusta Country Club down in Georgia where they play the Masters every year.
Here’s an idea. Let’s either start strapping people down and sending them to the great beyond or let’s take the death penalty off the books. If we haven’t got the guts to execute someone, then let’s not have judges sign death warrants.
The bottom line is when a prosecutor asks for death, the defendant gets a ton of top-notch legal assistance, private investigators, experts and anything needed to support his defense. This is all paid for by you and me. Why afford this when the death penalty is never used?
I don’t want a bunch of studies and attorneys debating the ethics of the issue. The death penalty has been around forever so we aren’t going to come up with any ethical high ground which hasn’t been thought of before. Either we kill them or we don’t. It’s that simple. And, if we aren’t, then let’s save some money and not make the death penalty an option. If we are, then let’s start clearing out death row and make some room for some new ones.
(Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)