A recent edi­to­r­i­al in America Magazine enti­tled The Price of Death reviewed the grow­ing prob­lems with the death penal­ty and stat­ed, ​“It is time for the nation to con­clude once and for all that in our civ­i­lized soci­ety there is no place for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” The nation­al Catholic week­ly cit­ed the recent­ly botched exe­cu­tion in Ohio, racial dis­par­i­ties, and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent as rea­sons why pub­lic sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has declined. The edi­to­r­i­al also point­ed to the high costs of the death penal­ty as a rea­son for act­ing now: ​“During the cur­rent reces­sion, rev­enue-starved states are look­ing close­ly at the cost of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. According to the non­prof­it Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., death penal­ty cas­es typ­i­cal­ly require huge expen­di­tures, part­ly because of re-tri­als to cor­rect pri­or errors. California’s Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, for exam­ple, has esti­mat­ed that the state is spend­ing $138 mil­lion a year on the death penalty.…Lawmakers, forced by the bud­get cri­sis to make cuts in basic ser­vices like schools, law enforce­ment, health care and libraries, must rethink such out­lays for capital punishment.”

The mag­a­zine said the failed exe­cu­tion of Romell Broom in Ohio raised par­tic­u­lar con­cerns about lethal injec­tion. ​“It was the third botched exe­cu­tion in the state over the past four years. Yet instead of declar­ing a mora­to­ri­um on the prac­tice, Gov. Ted Strickland sim­ply post­poned the exe­cu­tion of Mr. Broom and two oth­er con­demned men in order to allow offi­cials to revise the pro­to­cols for lethal injec­tions. Even in states where exe­cu­tions are car­ried out as planned, the often gris­ly cir­cum­stances lead some peo­ple to won­der why the United States sup­ports the death penal­ty, one of the few devel­oped coun­tries that still does so.”

Read the entire edi­to­r­i­al below:

The Price of Death
The edi­tors | OCTOBER 26, 2009

Public sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States has declined in recent years for sev­er­al rea­sons, one of which is botched exe­cu­tions. The most recent occur­rence was in September in an Ohio prison, where Romell Broom was to be put to death by lethal injection.

Technicians spent two hours attempt­ing to reach a vein on Mr. Broom’s arms and legs before they final­ly gave up and sent him back to his cell on death row. It was the third botched exe­cu­tion in the state over the past four years. Yet instead of declar­ing a mora­to­ri­um on the prac­tice, Gov. Ted Strickland sim­ply post­poned the exe­cu­tion of Mr. Broom and two oth­er con­demned men in order to allow offi­cials to revise the pro­to­cols for lethal injections.

Even in states where exe­cu­tions are car­ried out as planned, the often gris­ly cir­cum­stances lead some peo­ple to won­der why the United States sup­ports the death penal­ty, one of the few devel­oped coun­tries that still does so.

During the cur­rent reces­sion, rev­enue-starved states are look­ing close­ly at the cost of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. According to the non­prof­it Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., death penal­ty cas­es typ­i­cal­ly require huge expen­di­tures, part­ly because of re-tri­als to cor­rect pri­or errors. California’s Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, for exam­ple, has esti­mat­ed that the state is spend­ing $138 mil­lion a year on the death penal­ty. For the 670 peo­ple on its death row, the state spends $90,000 per inmate per year in addi­tion to the $34,000 annu­al cost of incar­cer­at­ing a pris­on­er serv­ing a life sen­tence. Death row inmates wait four years on aver­age before being assigned an attor­ney for their first appeal, which amounts to an added expen­di­ture of $360,000 per inmate even before the appeal is under way. Lawmakers, forced by the bud­get cri­sis to make cuts in basic ser­vices like schools, law enforce­ment, health care and libraries, must rethink such out­lays for capital punishment.

Meanwhile, the num­ber of exe­cu­tions has dropped. The 37 exe­cu­tions in 2008 mark a 14-year low, under­scor­ing a down­ward trend that reflects a change in pub­lic opin­ion. Although a Gallup poll last year found that a major­i­ty still sup­ports cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, sup­port declined from 69 per­cent in 2007 to 64 per­cent in 2008 — a sig­nif­i­cant con­trast with 1994, when 80 per­cent of Americans sup­port­ed it. Support drops when­ev­er the alter­na­tive is pro­posed of a life sen­tence with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Most polls show that sup­port for such life sen­tences is about the same as sup­port for the death penalty.

Belatedly proven inno­cence has become an increas­ing­ly impor­tant fac­tor in the shift of pub­lic opin­ion. Since 1973, when exe­cu­tions became legal again after a sev­en-year mora­to­ri­um, the num­ber of exon­er­a­tions has risen to 138 — eight of them in this year alone. Most of those exon­er­at­ed were mem­bers of racial minori­ties; 42 per­cent of pris­on­ers on death rows around the coun­try are black. Race is a fac­tor in the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty: stud­ies over the past two decades have shown that peo­ple con­vict­ed of killing whites were three times more like­ly to be sen­tenced to death than those con­vict­ed of killing blacks.

Even jus­tices of the U.S. Supreme Court have expressed oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Former Justice Harry Blackmun, who in the 1970s vot­ed to allow the death penal­ty, said just before his retire­ment in 1994, ​“I will no longer tin­ker with the machin­ery of death.” In 2008 Justice John Paul Stevens called the death penal­ty ​“the point­less and need­less extinc­tion of life.” And in a speech in 2001 for­mer Justice Sandra Day O’Connor observed that ​“the sys­tem may well be allow­ing some inno­cent defen­dants to be exe­cut­ed.” Consider the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was exe­cut­ed in 2004 hav­ing set a fire that killed his fam­i­ly; after­ward, how­ev­er, experts found no evi­dence of arson at his home. In 2002 the Supreme Court ruled on the basis of ​“evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy” that the exe­cu­tion of juve­niles vio­lat­ed the Eighth Amendment’s pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. On the same basis it ruled against exe­cut­ing those with men­tal retar­da­tion. These proac­tive steps lim­it the use of the death penalty.

The Catholic Church in the United States has long been opposed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. As ear­ly as 1980, the U.S. bish­ops vot­ed to declare their oppo­si­tion. Pope John Paul II empha­sized the uni­ver­sal church’s oppo­si­tion in his 1995 encycli­cal Evangelium Vitae. And in a speech at Emory University in Atlanta on Oct. 7, Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory not­ed that one long­stand­ing argu­ment — that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment serves a deter­rent pur­pose — has been large­ly dis­cred­it­ed by recent stud­ies. It is time for the nation to con­clude once and for all that in our civ­i­lized soci­ety there is no place for capital punishmennt.

(Editorial, ​“The Price of Death,” America, October 26, 2009). See DPIC’s pages on Romell Broom, Costs and Religion and the Death Penalty.

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