Check out this article at MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29552692/
"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.
The article is pretty cool. It has an interactive map with which you can hover your mouse over any given state and learn how many inmates have been killed in the name of justice since 1976. Texas has killed over 400 people!
And to make matters even worse,
The most recent arguments against it centered on the ever-increasing number of convicts cleared by DNA evidence.Some of the worst cases occurred in Illinois. In 2000, then-Gov. George H. Ryan placed a moratorium on executions after 13 people had been exonerated from death row for reasons including genetic testing and recanted testimony. Ryan declared the system "so fraught with error that it has come close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life."
He commuted the sentences of all 167 death row convicts, most to life imprisonment without parole. His moratorium is still in effect.
Across the country, the number of prisoners exonerated and released from death row is more than 130, with thousands of appeals clogging the courts. (emphasis mine).
Death penalty trials are more expensive for several reasons: They often require extra lawyers; there are strict experience requirements for attorneys, leading to lengthy appellate waits while capable counsel is sought for the accused; security costs are higher, as well as costs for processing evidence — DNA testing, for example, is far more expensive than simple blood analyses.
What ever happened to the "moral value" that it is better to let 100 guilty go free than to punish one innocent? And if you imprison an innocent, the best you can do is say, "Ooops, sorry about ruining your life." But you can't take a killing back!
Drill, baby drill!
Kill, baby kill!
You people really confuse me.
