Sen. Neal
Rep. Rollins
The recent introduction of legislation in Frankfort to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky is generating a fair amount of discussion in the media. Both sponsors, Rep. Carl Rollins II for House Bill 48 and Sen. Gerald Neal for Senate Bill 45, have referred to the expense involved in maintaining a death sentencing scheme. While cost is not the only reason lawmakers should be discussing killing killers, it is certainly an important one. (See New York Times: Group Gives Up Death Penalty Work.)
Measuring cost against effectiveness is something reasonable people do when they plan and implement policies. The $700 toilet seat fiasco of a few years ago reminds us that government doesn’t always perform at a high level. Since 1976, Kentucky has spent millions of dollars prosecuting death sentences. Results are dismal in terms of costs and outcomes: 3 executions, including two men who volunteered by giving up all appeals. Because of a variety of errors and violations of the civil rights of defendants, less than half of those sentenced to death remain on death row because courts ruled they could not be executed. And that error rate will climb as these cases wend their way through the court system.
In Montana, where the legislature is close to abolishing the death penalty, a former Republican State Senator, Roy Brown, supported abolition and had this to say during a public hearing in 2007:
It might be easier to allow the death penalty to continue if it were less expensive than life in prison. If the courts treated rich and poor equally. If it truly was a deterrent. If everyone that was executed was guilty. Unfortunately the sad truth about the death penalty is it is much more expensive. The courts do not disperse justice equally. It is not a deterrent. And sometimes, yes, sometimes they are innocent.
On its website the Department of Public Advocacy lists 19 reasons why killing people is so expensive. But knowing why it is expensive and knowing how much it actually costs us are two different matters. As noted on the site:
Estimating death penalty costs to Kentucky since 1976 is difficult. A proper calculation of costs associated with the death penalty statewide would require a formal study. Any references to costs outside the context of a completed study can only be estimates. These estimates likely understate actual costs because many of the costs of death penalty representation are hidden. The majority of death penalty costs do not appear as line items in any budget.
Nevertheless, of the line items specifically set aside for death penalty representation, DPA estimates that the Department currently spends approximately $3 million a year on death penalty representation. This does not include the additional spending by the judiciary, the prosecutors, and Corrections.
In December 2011, a report – EVALUATING FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN STATE DEATH PENALTY SYSTEMS: The Kentucky Death Penalty Assessment Report, An Analysis of Kentucky’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices – published by the American Bar Association pointed out serious flaws in Kentucky’s administration of justice and the death penalty, including the 60% error rate referred to earlier.
Rep. Crenshaw
In response to these findings State Rep. Jessie Crenshaw introduced a resolution in the 2012 session of the General Assembly to study the report and find ways to correct these flaws. An AP story published Jan. 25, 2011 quoted Rep. Brent Yonts on this point,
This is too … serious to have this many errors in it. You don’t take people’s lives unless you know what you’re doing.
Last week, Ryan Alessi at cn|2 News (at about 4:31 minutes into the interview) reported that Rep. Yonts, vice- chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is now saying that Kentucky should stop using the death penalty because the state’s capital punishment process is such a mess and has allowed innocent people to be put on death row:
I basically believe that the death penalty should not be abolished, but if we cannot administer it fairly, humanely and according to the constitution, we should not administer it.
To do it “fairly, humanely and according to the constitution,” will mean additional cost and expense. The ABA offered more than 50 recommendations needed to “fix” it and these fixes won’t come cheap.
Rep. Yonts
Rep. Yonts is a perfect example of those who support the death penalty, but not the one Kentucky has. No one should be executed who was sentenced to death using this flawed scheme.
Perhaps Governor Beshear, like Rep. Yonts, will conclude that until it is fairly administered, “we should not administer it” and refuse to sign any death warrants at this time.
And maybe enough lawmakers will listen to Rep. Rollins who told the Public News Service that while he has always objected to the death penalty on moral grounds, the cost of appeals is another reason to ban executions:
They’re basically in prison for life anyway, so why spend the extra money when we have many other needs in the state of Kentucky?
Kentuckians agree. In polls conducted at various times since 1997 by both the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, the majority of Kentuckians supported life without parole instead of the death penalty. The time has come to give the people of Kentucky what they prefer.
Photos: Courtesy Legislative Research Commission website
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