In prison my whole life

FINANCIAL FACTS ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY

A look at what some states say administering the death penalty costs the taxpayers. Money spent on administering the death penalty has long been criticized as being money that can better serve communities through increased police personnel and equipment.

The California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life. Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state’s executions. [L.A. Times, March 6, 2005]
In Kansas, the costs of capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-capital cases, including the costs of incarceration. [Kansas Performance Audit Report, December 2003]
In Indiana, the total costs of the death penalty exceed the complete costs of life without parole sentences by about 38%, assuming that 20% of death sentences are overturned and reduced to life. [Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission, January 10, 2002]
The most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level. [Duke University, May 1993]
Enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year above what it would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison without parole. Based on the 44 executions Florida had carried out since 1976 that amounts to a cost of $24 million for each execution. [Palm Beach Post, January 4, 2000]
In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. [Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992]

RACE

The races of the defendant or the victim are too often factors in the decision to seek the death penalty.

Racial Bias

…in Executions:

People of color comprise 43% of total executions since 1976, while comprising only around 25% of the population.
Since 1977, blacks and whites have been the victims of murders in almost equal numbers, yet 80% of the people executed in that period were convicted of murders involving white victims.

…on Death Row:

Despite the fact that African-Americans make up only 13% of our nation’s population, almost 50% of those who currently sit on the federal death row are African-American.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 48% of the defendants in federal cases in which the death penalty was sought between 2001 and 2006 were African-American.
A study in North Carolina found that the odds of receiving a death sentence rose by 3.5 times among those defendants whose victims were white.

Race as a Decisive Factor in Juvenile Death Sentences:

Over 60% of persons sentenced to death for childhood offenses since 1976 have been either African American or Latino.
Almost two-thirds of the current population of juvenile offenders on death row are persons of color.

A Legal Perspective:

Since the U.S. ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1994, the courts and legislatures in the USA have failed to act decisively in the face of evidence that race has an impact on capital sentencing.

JURY SELECTION

Since 2000, 37 people have been freed from death row after they were exonerated. In 62 percent of these cases, state misconduct in misinforming the juries played a significant role in the wrongful convictions.

Jurors’ deeply held personal views on capital punishment are picked apart and used as a litmus test of their ability to serve as member of the jury. Those adhering to beliefs preventing a death sentence will be rejected, even though those beliefs are well within the mainstream of public opinion.
A jurors’ color and gender will often play a key role in whether they are chosen for a death penalty trial. In recent Gallup Polls, far more blacks and women oppose the death penalty than white males, making it more likely that they will be excluded from capital juries. Similar considerations work against those with certain religious beliefs.
A juror in a capital cases are not representative of the population as a whole. Those allowed to serve will be more pro-prosecution and conviction-prone than those who are excluded.
Jurors’ who are selected might expect a high-quality pursuit of justice on a level playing field, but the truth will often be hidden from them: prosecutors may withhold critical evidence and defense attorneys may fail to investigate basic facts. Junk science, jailhouse informants and overly confident eyewitnesses will be offered as if they reliably established the defendant’s guilt.

A CHANGE IS GONNA COME

American attitudes about the death penalty are changing….

In 2007, New Jersey becomes the 1st state to legislatively end capital punishment since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
87 percent of Americans believe that an innocent person has been executed in recent years.
48 percent of Americans chose Life Without Parole as the proper sentence for first degree murder. This marked the first time in 20 years to show the death penalty in second place.
Leading Newspapers Come Out in Opposition to the Death Penalty
Chicago Tribune: “The evidence of mistakes, the evidence of arbitrary decisions, the sobering knowledge that government can’t provide certainly that the innocent will not be put to death – all that prompts this call for an end to capital punishment. It is time to stop killing in the people’s name.”
Dallas Morning News: “We believe that the state of Texas should abandon the death penalty – because we cannot reconcile the fact that it is both imperfect and irreversible.”
The Sentinel of Pennsylvania called the death penalty “useless.” The Rocky Mountain News of Colorado said that, in their state, “for all practical purposes the penalty no longer exists in any meaningful sense at all,” and hence it should be taken off the books. The Los Angeles Times called on the state study commission to make a death penalty moratorium its first order of business. The Houston Chronicle likewise advocated for a Texas moratorium. National papers such as the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today have had long-term editorial positions against the death penalty.