Philip Holloway, a CNN legal ana­lyst who has been both a pros­e­cu­tor and crim­i­nal defense attor­ney, says in a recent op-ed that ​“it is hard not to ques­tion the ratio­nal­i­ty — indeed the san­i­ty” of the death penal­ty. Holloway says ​“there are sev­er­al prac­ti­cal rea­sons why the death penal­ty just does­n’t make sense any longer, if it ever real­ly did in the first place,” and out­lines five rea­sons why he believes the United States should recon­sid­er cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. First, he says that life with­out parole is actu­al­ly a harsh­er pun­ish­ment than the death penal­ty, cit­ing the harsh con­di­tions of max­i­mum-secu­ri­ty pris­ons on the state and fed­er­al lev­el. Second, Holloway points to the ongo­ing tri­al of James Holmes in Colorado as one instance of the exces­sive cost of the death penal­ty. The Holmes tri­al is expect­ed to cost about $3.5 mil­lion, com­pared to an aver­age of $150,000 in cas­es with­out the death penal­ty. Third, he notes the toll of cap­i­tal cas­es on vic­tims’ fam­i­lies: ​“fam­i­ly mem­bers and loved ones of mur­der vic­tims often find them­selves entan­gled in the jus­tice sys­tem for a very long time” because of lengthy appeals after a death sen­tence is hand­ed down. His fourth point is the uneven appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty, which he says is the result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion in whether to seek a death sen­tence. Finally, Holloway says, ​“Despite safe­guards, inno­cent peo­ple do wind up on death row.” He men­tions the 154 peo­ple exon­er­at­ed from death row, high­light­ing last year’s exon­er­a­tion of Henry McCollum, who spent 30 years on death row before being cleared by DNA evi­dence. ​“Our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem — and those caught up in it, includ­ing the fam­i­lies of vic­tims — would be the biggest ben­e­fi­cia­ries should we choose to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States,” he concludes. 

(P. Holloway, ​“Time to ques­tion san­i­ty of death penal­ty,” CNN, July 22, 2015.) See Costs and Innocence.

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