Death Penalty Debate

Dead Certain At Last

Death penalty supporters and opponents have bludgeoned each other with moral certainties for decades, but at last something speaks to the core of the American soul – killing convicts costs too much.

A September 27 New York Times editorial highlighted information from the Death Penalty Information Center: Killing convicts costs the taxpayers lots more than sentencing them to life. As always, follow the money.

The money here flows into the pockets of lawyers. Seeking the death penalty and defending against it isn’t something most for-hire guardians of justice do for free, and it’s not a results-oriented effort. New Jersey, which abolished the death penalty in 2007, spent $253 million since 1982 on death penalty cases without a single execution taking place, the only innocent victims being taxpayers.

California, which punctuates its wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides and droughts with budget crises, spends $90,000 more per inmate per year on those under death sentence than on those in prison for life. So the current death-row groups hands taxpayers a yearly $60-million-plus tab and just 13 executions since 1976.

There are other examples, but the core message is that ending the death penalty on financial grounds is a magnificent opportunity for all political parties.

Republicans, who tend to be death penalty supporters, can appeal to their higher gods and campaign to Reduce Government Spending while Protecting the Innocent. Not the Innocent Unborn, exactly, but that’s a nuance best left to Republican spin doctors. If they can make Sarah Palin seem presidential material, innocent convicts ought not to be a challenge.

Democrats, who tend to be death penalty opponents, can don the mantle of Fiscal Conservatism while continuing their traditional championing of the underdog. That only strengthens their normally strong prison and cemetery vote, and appeals to the Blue Dog Democrats, aw-shucks jeans-wearing liberals who secretly wear Republican wool union suits to bed.

Independents, whose weed of indecision has become a flower of principle, can support the death penalty but oppose funding any executions.

Libertarians can continue to be amused, since they would have settled all outstanding issues by single combat long ago.

Even the Obama administration, which is looking for health care reform change in every federal couch, ought to jump on the death-penalty-too-costly bandwagon. Money not spent on killing convicts might more profitably be spent on health care for the living, but that too needs the proper political spin. Look for a White House press release headlined “Administration Denies Greedy Convicts Death Money, Shifts It To Health.”

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