A recent edi­to­r­i­al in The Birmingham News crit­i­cized the cost­ly and unfair nature of Alabama’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem. It also called on state leg­is­la­tors to, at a min­i­mum, take steps that would lim­it the num­ber of crimes eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. The news­pa­per, which recent­ly wrote a series of edi­to­ri­als chang­ing its long-stand­ing sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and call­ing on the state to aban­don the use of the death penal­ty, noted:

More vari­eties of mur­der qual­i­fy for the death penal­ty in Alabama than in most states, and some pros­e­cu­tors charge every crime that qual­i­fies as a capital crime. 

That may sound like a good thing — a way to real­ly crack down on vio­lent crime and stick it to crim­i­nals. But the peo­ple who are real­ly get­ting stuck are Alabama taxpayers. 

That’s because cap­i­tal cas­es cost more than those that don’t have a chance of end­ing in the death penal­ty, as demon­strat­ed in a sto­ry on Sunday in The News. 

In fis­cal 2005, the state’s bill for cap­i­tal defense was on aver­age $20,416 — a small sum, real­ly, but almost 16 times as much as the $1,300 aver­age indi­gent defense in class‑A felony cas­es. Why? When a defen­dan­t’s life is at stake, the law requires two defense lawyers, an inves­ti­ga­tor and a spe­cial­ist to look for mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors that could make life with­out parole a more appro­pri­ate sen­tence than death. 

The addi­tion­al expens­es are entire­ly jus­ti­fied, but the num­bers add up: Since 2000, Alabama tax­pay­ers have paid more than $14 mil­lion to defend peo­ple charged with capital murder. 

Prosecutors say they’re paid the same whether they’re pur­su­ing death penal­ty cas­es or not. But they don’t dis­pute that death penal­ty cas­es usu­al­ly take more of their time. That means they invest more of their office resources in cap­i­tal cas­es than in noncapital cases. 

But do the time and mon­ey trans­late to more death sen­tences? No. 

Since 1990, 1,965 cap­i­tal mur­der indict­ments have been brought and resolved in Alabama. Of the total cas­es, only 33% end­ed with a cap­i­tal con­vic­tion and only 11% end­ed with a death sen­tence. In Jefferson County, the per­cent­ages are even worse. Of 716 resolved cap­i­tal cas­es, just 25% end­ed with con­vic­tion and only 5% a death sentence. 

Translation: Taxpayers are spend­ing tremen­dous sums of mon­ey on cap­i­tal cas­es that judges and juries do not believe mer­it death sentences. 

Granted, Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber makes a valid case for bring­ing cap­i­tal charges if the crime fits any of the death-penal­ty cri­te­ria. Prosecutors who pick and choose which crimes are wor­thy of death have been accused of (and have been guilty of) mak­ing arbi­trary and unfair distinctions. 

The prob­lem is, Alabama’s death penal­ty law also makes arbi­trary and unfair dis­tinc­tions. In one of the sil­li­est pro­vi­sions, sim­ply shoot­ing some­one in a car or from a car is a cap­i­tal crime. Shooting the same per­son on the street is not. 

Of course, The News edi­to­r­i­al board believes the state should abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment alto­geth­er because of our views on the sanc­ti­ty of life and our con­cerns that Alabama’s death penal­ty is not fool­proof or fair. But even those who endorse cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have an inter­est in mak­ing sure the sys­tem is as cost-effec­tive and ratio­nal as possible. 

The Legislature could help by trim­ming the list of mur­ders that qual­i­fy for a death sen­tence. A broad­er, uni­form process to decide when pros­e­cu­tors can pur­sue a cap­i­tal charge would also help. 

If the state is going to have a death penal­ty, at the very least it should be rea­son­ably applied. To do oth­er­wise is not only unfair — it’s expensive. 

(The Birmingham News, December 7, 2005) See Editorials, Arbitrariness and Costs. Read excerpts from The Birmingham News edi­to­ri­als call­ing on Alabama to aban­don the death penal­ty.

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