Very good article on the Death Penalty
A friend sent this article to me from FloridaToday.com, which gave a very good argument to do away with the death penalty in Florida. Its better I just copy and paste it here for you, because there is no way I could be any more eloquent than the article itself.
July 2, 2008
Our view: Finally, it's over
Mark Schwab's execution ends a painful chapter in Brevard County historyIt was a crime that shocked our community and state:
A convicted child molester is released from prison, stalks an 11-year-old boy, befriends him and then kidnaps, rapes, tortures and murders the child.
It's the lurid tale of Mark Dean Schwab who was finally executed Tuesday after spending 16 years on Death Row for slaying Junny Rios-Martinez of Cocoa in 1991.
It's impossible to comprehend the torment the murder and Schwab's long fight to save his life has had on Junny's family, but hopefully his demise will end their nightmare.
Justice has been served, closing out a painful chapter in Brevard County history.
But Schwab's execution won't end the debate about the badly broken death penalty system in Florida. In fact, it should begin a serious discussion on whether capital punishment in Florida should be abolished and replaced with life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Figures from the Death Penalty Information Center and a 2006 study by leading state prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges for the American Bar Association show why that should probably occur:
· Florida has released more wrongfully convicted inmates from Death Row than any other state -- 22 since 1973.
· Persons with severe mental disabilities have been executed.
· Minorities and the poor disproportionately receive death sentences.
· Death penalty lawyers are paid so poorly that capable attorneys won't take the work.
· Courts don't properly instruct juries about sentencing duties or require that death sentence verdicts be unanimous.
· The average length of stay on Death Row in Florida -- where 387 prisoners now await execution, 11 of them from Brevard County -- is 14 years, according to the Department of Corrections.
· Each execution costs the state $24 million, and Florida would save $51 million per year by sentencing all first-degree murderers to life in prison without parole, according to a study by the Palm Beach Post in 2000.
The system is so flawed that Schwab's execution was the first in Florida since Gov. Jeb Bush ordered a moratorium in December 2006 because of constitutional questions surrounding lethal injection.
It has also caused Ron Andrew, the former warden of Florida State Prison who supported the death penalty during his long career with the state Department of Corrections, to call it "wrong" and now oppose it.
In sum, capital punishment has become a burden on Florida's legal system and taxpayers, serving not as a deterrent to crime but a long, expensive and often futile quest for vengeance.
That's why more states are moving away from it, including Illinois and New Jersey. Meanwhile, in Ohio, prosecutors are more frequently seeking life without parole instead of death.
And in Texas, the former spokesman for the state prison system who was involved in 219 lethal injections now says he believes Texas uses the death penalty "way too much."
In the past few years, the U.S. Supreme Court has wisely narrowed the parameters of capital punishment, ruling those who are mentally ill or under 18 cannot be executed. It continued down that road last week, saying child rapists cannot be put to death.
The heinous nature of Schwab's crime makes it easy to understand why many are cheering his execution. But his death won't resolve the inherent flaws in capital punishment in Florida.
The time has come to seriously consider ending its use.
posted by George at 8:11:00 AM
2 Comments:
Florida Today makes huge errors and ommissions in their "facts", all of which toe the standard anti death penalty line.
FT equates wrongly convicted and actually innocent death row inmates, claiming 22 actual innocents to be removed, therefrom. Nope. Possibly 4-5 actual innocents have been released from Florida's death row. FT's refusal to both fact check and be clear is unfortunate.
Yes, murderers with severe mental disabilities have been executed. But, the courts determined in those cases that the murderer should suffer the proper legal sanction for the crime and that the murderer was mentally and psychologically fit to suffer the consequences. For example, the murderer could have severe anti social behavior and they would still be completely responsible for their actions.
Florida Today is simply wrong that "Minorities and the poor disproportionately receive death sentences." They forgot to qualify by stating "the minorities and poor who commit capital murder." When the qualification is based upon committing capital murder, the only reason folks are put on death row in Florida, as opposed to the ridiculous practice of looking at population counts, not a reason to asses a death sentence, any alleged disparity vanishes.
Many excellent defense counsel represent accused capital murderers, both at trial and upon appeals. A small percentage of the cases are overturned because of ineffective assistance of counsel. FT should have pointed that out. Of course, that would, specifically, contradicts FT statements. In addition, FT neglected that some prosecutors could have done a better job in some cases and that the death penalty should have been the sanction, but for the poor work of the prosecutor. That failure is the result of FT's anti death penalty mind set, wherein it is always fine when the death penalty is not given.
FT states: "Courts don't properly instruct juries about sentencing duties or require that death sentence verdicts be unanimous." Let's be serious FT, OK? Tell us what percentage of Fla death row cases have been overturned for that reason over the past ten years and if updated instructions have been implemented and if any new sentencing instructions were responsible for overturning any of those cases. The law does not require unanimous decisions and the courts follow the law. It should be noted that Florida has a bout a 99.5% accuracy rate in convicting the actually guilty. Tragically, one of the actually innocent died on death row, of cancer.
FT writes: "The average length of stay on Death Row in Florida . . . is 14 years, according to the Department of Corrections." I'll accept that as true. FT doesn't provide one suggestion for the practical manner in which Florida can, responsibly, finalize appeals within 6-8 years. They don't want to.
This one is fantastic. FT writes: "Each execution costs the state $24 million". That figure is based upon putting the costs of ALL death penalty cases into those few cases resulting in execution. For example, today, let's say Florida has sentenced 920 inmates to death and has executed 61. This absurd "cost analysis" totals the pre trial, trial, appellate and incarceration costs for all 920 cases and divides that by 61. How bad is that? Absurd, of course. Let's look at the exact example comparison - Let's speculate that 4000 inmates have been sentenced to a life sentence in Florida. Only 1 of them has died. FT would say each life sentence in Florida costs $800 million, or all the costs of those 4000 inmates times $200, 000 on average/inmate, divided by the number of complete life sentences - the one prisoner now dead. That is, precisely, what FT is saying, with regard to the $24 million.
FT states "The system is so flawed that Schwab's execution was the first in Florida since Gov. Jeb Bush ordered a moratorium in December 2006 because of constitutional questions surrounding lethal injection." Huh? Does FT not want system wide appeals to apply system wide? The constitutional questions/answers ending up supporting lethal injection. Why doesn't FT criticize the appeal that stopped lethal injection, as that appeal failed? Because FT doesn't want executions. It is absurd for FT to accuse the system of being flawed when the appeal resulted in the validation of the Fla procedures. FT can't even see it, because they come solely from the anti death penalty perspective.
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