TN DEATH PENALTY BLOG
We are traveling through Tennessee's heartland and highways, meeting folks and starting conversations about our death penalty.
Previous Posts
- News Story concerning Promptness Subcommittee
- Knoxville Church Shooting Victim Drops Death Penal...
- Prayers and Thoughts for the Knoxville Tennessee V...
- Promptness Study Committee Meets
- More National News for Paul House
- Maryland Anti-Death Penalty Activists Targeted
- Death Penalty Study Committee Meets
- Another Possible Break for Paul House
- At Home with Paul House
- Paul House Released
Links
- Abolish the Death Penalty Blog
- Amnesty International Death Penalty Blog
- Asia Death Penalty Blog
- For Victims, Against the Death Penalty
- The Real Cost of Prisons Blog
- Uncommon Sense on the Death Penalty
- National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
- Death Penalty Information Center
- Citizens United Against the Death Penalty
- Murder Victims Families for Human Rights
- Google News: TN death penalty
Contributors
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
California Report Indicts Death Penalty
The California Commission on the Death Penalty released its report on June 30, 2008, and I think it is important for Tennesseans, whose legislature is also examining the death penalty with the Tennessee Committee to Study the Administration of the Death Penalty, to reflect on what the California report found. Here are some excerpts:
Delays
"Thirty persons have been on California's death row for more than 25 years; 119 have been on death row for more than 2o years; and 240 have been on death row for more than 15 years."
(In Tennessee, by my count, there are 27 inmates on death row who have been there for 20 years or more. There are 16 inmates who have been there for 15-20 years.)
"The families of murder victims are cruelly deluded in to believing that justice will be delivered with finality during their lifetimes."
Costs
"The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate."
(There has been no thorough and complete study of the cost of Tennessee's death penalty system in the modern era.)
Alternatives Offered
Delays
"Thirty persons have been on California's death row for more than 25 years; 119 have been on death row for more than 2o years; and 240 have been on death row for more than 15 years."
(In Tennessee, by my count, there are 27 inmates on death row who have been there for 20 years or more. There are 16 inmates who have been there for 15-20 years.)
"The families of murder victims are cruelly deluded in to believing that justice will be delivered with finality during their lifetimes."
Costs
"The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate."
(There has been no thorough and complete study of the cost of Tennessee's death penalty system in the modern era.)
Alternatives Offered
- Narrowing the list of special circumstances that make a case eligible for a death sentence such as limiting aggravators and excluding felony murder as the basis for death eligibility
- Establishing the maximum penalty at lifetime incarceration
- Estimating and comparing the annual costs of available alternatives
Conclusion
"This report sets forth an ambitious and expensive agenda of reform. The failure to implement , however will be even more costly. The death penalty will remain a hollow promise to the people of California."
