I was listening to the radio today and heard that the U.S. spent $200 million training a group of Yemen security people so they could help in the fight against terrorists. Now, this is the place where American sailors died because a ship got attacked with a bomb.

We think nothing of that expense, and rightly so, because it is in defense of American citizens. Should we require any more justification to spend money to protect innocent Americans from people who have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to (1) be a future danger (even if kept in prison for the next 40 years) and (2) have nothing to mitigate their moral responsibility for killing someone?

To me, the issue is not the money. There is a cost, sometimes a high cost, associated with living in a "civilized" society. In fact, the very worst argument I feel we can make as prosecutors is to advocate keeping the death penalty because its cheaper to kill someone than to keep them in prison.

I also disagree that the cost of trials would be similar if the punishment associated with a capital crime were mandatory LWOP (similar to a second sex offense conviction). In fact, the average cost of a capital trial would be minimal--the same as any other serious felony crime--if LWOP were the mandatory punishment. But its just as wrong to argue that we should do away with the death penalty because we're trying to streamline trial costs. I realize that is not the proposal on the table (mandatory LWOP), but my guess is that advocates of LWOP will advance this proposal before the discussion ends.

Philosophically, I have no problem with the death penalty and believe it is an appropriate punishment in certain cases. The only issue I have with it is that, if a mistake is made, its too late to correct the problem after the guy is in the ground or in an urn on somebody's mantle. The problem today is admittedly not as great as it was twenty years ago before the advent of DNA testing and other technological innovations that allow us to more accurately identify the perp.

I guess I'm the only prosecutor in The Great State who is against most executions. There are some exceptions: Bin Laden, Saddam Hussain, Milosivic, as well as homegrown types who are just too dangerous to keep alive. But I do not believe most of the crooks we execute fall into that catagory.

There certainly are some inmates who will try to kill until they are put down. But death row also has inmates who, if they were released, would never kill again.

There are several problems with the DP. For one, there are men who kill in hopes they will be executed--a form of suicide by execution. There are many more who think they can never get caught, and thus the DP is not a deterrant. Another problem: while the law can be rehashed over and over again, the facts, as settled by a jury, are pretty much immutable. I just don't have that much confidence in jurys.

Most countries have effectively abolished the DP, with no apparent bad effect. Is anyone here afraid to visit Canada, because there are no executions there? And finally, there is the John Dunne Factor ("No man is a rock, an island unto himself . . . ."): when you execute someone, you also devastate others, like his family, friends. I would think the same thing is true of the TDC crew that works on Death Row and at the Death House. An execution involves some very heavy costs that have nothing to do with money.

If you don't trust a jury, why are you a lawyer?

John, are you saying lawyers (or anyone else) should "trust" all juries to make rational decisions, or even decisions reflective of the majority of the members of the community? Williamson County juries must be in a class all their own. How do you justify your losses? Are they always due to something other than either juror incompetence or nullification? Since DP juries are far more carefully selected than the average jury, are they necessarily a better set of judges? I certainly think you can love the law and practice in that field without being enamored of the jury system. In my view the jury system in this country has simply helped to assure (as expressed in an article in the Bar Journal) "that litigation be reduced to a highly competitive endeavor which has little, if anything, to do with either truth or justice, giving those practitioners who prove themselves most adept at playing the game marketability." If the reforms suggested by Judge Rothwax in "Guilty" were instituted, then I might come to trust our modern criminal juries, but until then they will be part of the problem in achieving justice, uniformity, etc., etc.

Terry, as I view your comment, you accept the DP, just not in its current form. There will always be reason to doubt the ultimate penalty and even its strongest supporters will likely disagree about certain aspects ad infinitum. LWOP is the natural alternative, since it has to be seen as the next best protection available. But it should not be an automatic choice since it does not offer the same protection or punishment.

[This message was edited by Martin Peterson on 10-06-02 at .]