Midland County, Texas, District Attorney Teresa Clingman (pic­tured) recent­ly accept­ed a sen­tence of life with­out parole rather than seek­ing the death penal­ty for Dan Higgins, a man who pled guilty to killing a Midland County Sheriff’s Deputy. Clingman’s deci­sion was part of a larg­er trend of pros­e­cu­tors choos­ing life with­out parole even for the most seri­ous crimes. West Texas A&M crim­i­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor and for­mer prison war­den Keith Price said, ​“Capital death has so many require­ments — it’s so expen­sive. Capital death: the con­vict­ed dies in prison by lethal injec­tion. Capital life: the con­vict­ed dies in prison when­ev­er his nat­ur­al life is over. From an inca­pac­i­ta­tion stand­point, the DA has accom­plished the same thing. That par­tic­u­lar per­son will nev­er see the Texas pub­lic again.” As a result of sim­i­lar deci­sions by oth­er pros­e­cu­tors, and juries pre­fer­ring life with­out parole more often, death sen­tences in the U.S. have declined by about 75% since their peak in the mid-1990s. Clingman cit­ed a request from the deputy’s wid­ow not to seek the death penal­ty, say­ing, ​“The rea­son­ing is because we can’t pun­ish him any more than we’re already pun­ish­ing him. It saves the vic­tim in that case from hav­ing to go through a tri­al. [The vic­tim’s wid­ow] also took into con­sid­er­a­tion that Mr. Higgins will now spend his time in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion rather than on death row in a sin­gle cell by him­self for the rest of his life.” Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter sup­port­ed the pros­e­cu­tor’s deci­sion, say­ing, ​“I think sav­ing the coun­ty mon­ey, sav­ing the heartache for the fam­i­lies involved is the best solu­tion for this par­tic­u­lar case. The Midland County’s Sheriff’s Office not only lost a broth­er and a friend, this coun­ty lost a great employ­ee. Only time right now can help set­tle the feel­ings right now.”

(B. Mulder and R. Druzin, ​“Higgins case fol­lows recent trend,” Midland Reporter-Telegram, March 1, 2015). See Costs and Sentencing.

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