Jim Davidsaver, a 20-year vet­er­an with the Lincoln Police Department in Nebraska, recent­ly wrote a col­umn out­lin­ing his sup­port for leg­is­la­tion that would have repealed the state’s death penal­ty. Davidsaver said he sup­port­ed the mea­sure, which failed to pass into law, because the death penal­ty does not deter crime and is too expen­sive. He not­ed that in his years of ser­vice with the police force he wit­nessed many hor­rif­ic crime scenes, but none of the accused mur­der­ers was ever deterred by the death penal­ty. He wrote:

As a career law enforce­ment offi­cer, I con­sid­ered myself an inter­est­ed spec­ta­tor as the Legislature debat­ed the bill, LB476, spon­sored by Sen. Ernie Chambers, that would have replaced the state’s death penal­ty with manda­to­ry life impris­on­ment with­out parole and allowed the victim’s fam­i­ly to seek restitution. 

…
During my career, which includes 10+ years as a cer­ti­fied crime scene tech­ni­cian, I have expe­ri­enced count­less vio­lent crime scenes where the per­pe­tra­tors inflict­ed hor­rif­ic injury, pain and suf­fer­ing on their vic­tims. Of the accused mur­der­ers my fel­low offi­cers and I have brought to jus­tice, I do not believe any of them was deterred in the least by Nebraska’s death penal­ty.
…
One facet of the issue that is rarely men­tioned is the eco­nom­ic cost of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Many who oppose the death penal­ty are quick to men­tion the ​“cost” in abstract soci­o­log­i­cal terms, refer­ring to the neg­a­tive impact on soci­ety when revert­ing to ​“an eye for an eye” ret­ri­bu­tion and pun­ish­ment.

I do not know whether it is prop­er or eth­i­cal to base a death penal­ty dis­cus­sion on sim­ple eco­nom­ic terms, but this aspect deserves con­sid­er­a­tion.

[C]apital pun­ish­ment cas­es are the most expen­sive cas­es by far. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty esti­mates the aver­age cost of a sin­gle death penal­ty case, from arrest to exe­cu­tion, ranges from $1 mil­lion to $3 mil­lion. Other stud­ies have esti­mat­ed this cost as high as $7 mil­lion. This com­pares to an aver­age of $500,000 for a life impris­on­ment case, includ­ing incar­cer­a­tion. The manda­to­ry fis­cal note attached to LB476 shows the attor­ney’s gen­er­al office esti­mates no fis­cal impact if the law is adopt­ed. The Department of Correctional Services stat­ed the fis­cal impact can­not be deter­mined.
…
Whether you agree with it or not, it is an absolute require­ment to main­tain the integri­ty of the sys­tem and ensure jus­tice is served. Removing the death penal­ty vari­able from the jus­tice equa­tion should reduce the over­all cost.

((Lincoln) Journal Star, March 25, 2007). See DPIC’s report on Law Enforcement and the Death Penalty; also see Costs and New Voices.

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