In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Great Falls Tribune reversed its long-stand­ing posi­tion and called for the end of the death penal­ty in Montana. The paper cit­ed the cost of main­tain­ing the death penal­ty as a pri­ma­ry rea­son for why the pun­ish­ment should be repealed. The edi­tors joined in the efforts of a rel­a­tive­ly new con­ser­v­a­tive group to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: “[E]ven with­out defin­i­tive state data [on costs], we align with the Montana Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty. It’s time to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Montana.” The edi­to­r­i­al con­clud­ed, ​“In a just soci­ety, the only way to impose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is to pro­vide a skilled, capa­ble defense for the accused. Access to appeals must be part of the process. Anything less would con­sti­tute an unjust sys­tem. The eco­nom­ic real­i­ty is that it’s a sys­tem we sim­ply can­not afford.” Read full editorial below.

It’s time to end Montana’s death penalty

When it comes to divi­sive­ness, the death penal­ty is in the camp of top issues, right up there with abor­tion and homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. Most of us are fer­vent­ly on one side or the oth­er, and rarely does some­one jump over to the oth­er side. And all of us rely on gov­ern­ment to enforce laws about such moral issues, laws cre­at­ed by our rep­re­sen­ta­tives, such as those gov­ern­ing abor­tion prac­tices or same-sex marriage.

Montana State District Court Judge Jeffry Sherlock of Helena ruled that Montana’s pro­to­col for the exe­cu­tion method for those sen­tenced to the death penal­ty— by means of lethal injec­tion — amounts to cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment under both the U.S. and Montana constitutions.

He said the pro­to­col doesn’t ensure qual­i­fied indi­vid­u­als are mak­ing key deci­sions, such as ver­i­fy­ing that the inmate is uncon­scious and inca­pable of feel­ing pain before admin­is­tra­tion of the death drugs.

The prob­lems could be fixed, either by the 2013 Legislature or some oth­er option being explored by state officials now.

It’s a lit­tle sur­pris­ing to see an effort to let cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Montana end being led by mem­bers of the polit­i­cal right. That is until you look at the rea­son­ing behind Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.

“When it takes over 20 years and hun­dreds of thou­sands of tax­pay­er dol­lars for extra legal fees and court costs, it is obvi­ous that the process is full of waste and inef­fi­cien­cy,” said for­mer state Sen. Roy Brown, a Republican from Billings.

In one of the most recent cost stud­ies of the death penal­ty, The Urban Institute esti­mat­ed the addi­tion­al cost of a death penal­ty tri­al in Maryland was $1.9 mil­lion, com­pared with a tri­al for a sim­i­lar crime in a non-death penalty case.

One in every three cap­i­tal tri­als results in an exe­cu­tion, accord­ing to the Death Penalty Information Center. A study of the costs of death penal­ty tri­als in Montana com­pared with tri­als for sim­i­lar crimes in non-death penal­ty tri­als ordered by the Legislative Finance Committee was not com­plet­ed because of a lack of resources.

But even with­out defin­i­tive state data, we align with the Montana Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty. It’s time to end cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Montana.

In a just soci­ety, the only Way to impose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is to pro­vide a skilled, capa­ble defense for the accused. Access to appeals must be part of the process. Anything less would con­sti­tute an unjust system.

The eco­nom­ic real­i­ty is that it’s a sys­tem we sim­ply can­not afford. That’s a tough thing for any­one on either side of the death penal­ty fence to argue against.

(“It’s time to end Montana’s death penal­ty,” Great Falls Tribune, September 23, 2012; DPIC post­ed Oct. 3, 2012). See Costs. Read more Editorials on the death penal­ty. Listen to DPIC’s pod­cast on Costs.

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