In two sep­a­rate guest columns for The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), four state leg­is­la­tors urged an end to the death penal­ty in Tennessee. State Representatives Steve McManus (top left) and Mark White (top right), both Republicans, called cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, ​“a lousy return on our invest­ment.” Estimating that Tennessee’s death penal­ty is sim­i­lar in costs to North Carolina’s $11 mil­lion-per-year sys­tem, they list­ed some alter­na­tive uses for death penal­ty funds. ​“270 patrol offi­cers. 361 state troop­ers. 228 detec­tives and crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tors. 110 new school bus­es. 239 teach­ers. Compensation for 367 crime vic­tims and their fam­i­lies.” They go on to raise con­cerns about the accu­ra­cy of cap­i­tal con­vic­tions in Tennessee, which has exe­cut­ed six inmates and exon­er­at­ed three. ​“Six-and-three isn’t bad if you’re play­ing foot­ball. It’s not very good if you’re decid­ing life or death.” On the oth­er side of the aisle, Democratic State Sen. Lee Harris (bot­tom left) and State Rep. Johnnie Turner (bot­tom right) called the death penal­ty, ​“bro­ken,” giv­ing four rea­sons for their oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“First, we should be invest­ing in infra­struc­ture, schools, police and emer­gency ser­vices, and pub­lic trans­porta­tion, among others…Second, exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son is an unac­cept­able risk…Third, the death penal­ty affects inno­cent peo­ple in oth­er ways, too…the evi­dence shows that some peo­ple, when faced with the prospect of death, will false­ly admit to tak­ing a life to save their own…Fourth, we could be doing more for vic­tims’ fam­i­lies.” They con­clude, ​“In the end, the death penal­ty is a need­less source of ongo­ing con­tention, and it takes up too much of our valu­able time and resources while we’re try­ing to work through all the oth­er prob­lems our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is facing.”

(S. McManus and M. White, ​“Guest col­umn: The death penal­ty is a bad invest­ment,” Commercial Appeal, July 12, 2015; L. Harris and J. Turner, ​“Guest col­umn: Tennessee needs to have a thor­ough con­ver­sa­tion on the death penal­ty,” Commercial Appeal, July 12, 2015.) See New Voices and Costs.

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