The economic drain of the death penalty versus life in prison

The execution of David Anthony Lucas on Wednesday, along with Kenneth Earl Fults on April 12, Joshua Daniel Bishop on March 31, Travis Clinton Hittson on Feb. 17 and Brandon Astor Jones on Feb. 3 will bring the total of executions to 16 under Gov. Nathan Deal. Once again it brings up the subject of whether the government should be putting people to death. That is not for this Editorial Board to decide, but it is a debate that should not be left out of the efforts to reform the criminal justice system in the state.

Many of the reforms are not being undertaken just to save lives and to rescue wasted potential — but to save money. And if saving money were the only measure, should sentencing killers to life in prison rather than putting them to death be one of the considerations?

Lucas was sentenced to die in 1999 for the murder of three people — Steven Moss, 37, his two children, 11-year-old Bryan and 15-year-old Kristin — during a botched 1998 burglary at their home in Jones County. Lucas was not alone. His accomplice, Brandon Rhode, was executed for his part in the crime six years ago. Eighteen years ago, Lucas’ victim was the same age as Lucas at the time of his execution.

Staying strictly with the cost of the death penalty and ignoring other factors such as it acting as a deterrence, bias in sentencing or innocence, there are several reasons the death penalty, once sought, is time consuming and expensive. District attorneys, according to the Marshall Project, devote more staff to such cases and assign more experienced prosecutors from their offices. More time is taken with every aspect of the trial, from jury selection to expert witnesses to deal with a murderer’s upbringing to his or her sanity to DNA evidence to investigators. A death penalty case can easily cost more than $1 million, more than housing and feeding them for their entire life.

Prosecutors also enter a death penalty case with trepidation. They know it’s going to be a long slog. Even in the Lucas case, though convicted in 1999, the sentence couldn’t be carried out before a number of appeals are automatically granted. And that’s another area where taxpayers need to be concerned. Who pays for that court-public defender who may see the case through to the end — and that end could easily take a decade or more. This is as it should be. Once a lethal injection is given there is no going back — and yes, mistakes are made.

The Innocence Project over the past 20 years:

• Proved the innocence of 18 prisoners sentenced to death using DNA evidence.

• Proved the innocence of 29 prisoners using DNA evidence who pleaded guilty to crimes they didn't commit.

• Proved the innocence of 16 prisoners charged with capital crimes but not sentenced to death using DNA evidence.

In Georgia we have some decisions to make. There remains about 73 prisoners on death row. With the Lucas execution, the state has tied a record for executions it set in 1987. We are not here to decide whether these murderers deserve to die. That’s a question the court has already answered. The question that needs to be answered in this debate is: Can we afford to kill them?

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 9:12 PM with the headline "The economic drain of the death penalty versus life in prison."