| Gell Case Helps Show Death Penalty Math Doesn't Add Up |
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October 13, 2009 By Dave Russell The Asheville Citizen Times The Death Penalty Information Center lists the names of 138 people who have been freed from death row in the United States since 1973. To make the list, “Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either a) their conviction was overturned and they were acquitted at re-trial or all charges were dropped, or b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence.” Number 115 on that list is Alan Gell, a North Carolina man who was just awarded $3.9 million for spending nine years behind bars — and four years on death row — before being acquitted at a new trial. The Gell case is just one more reason I think it is past time to abolish the death penalty in the Tar Heel State and across the nation. I’ll let others make moral arguments against it. My argument is purely conservative, as in fiscally conservative. At a time when states across the country are cutting budgets left and right, money spent to kill someone who might be innocent is an expense we can’t afford to continue to fund. The North Carolina Department of Corrections reports that in 2008, it cost $89.17 per day, or $32,547 per year, to keep someone in “close custody,” also known as maximum security. The Death Penalty Information Center cites a study that shows it has cost North Carolina $2.16 million more to seek a death penalty and execute someone than to prosecute non-death penalty murder cases with a sentence of life imprisonment. Doing the math, N.C. can keep a convict alive in a maximum security prison for 66 years before reaching the “it would have been cheaper to execute” threshold. The death penalty is forever. No matter how far science advances, we are a long way away from bringing people back from the dead. And no matter how much faith we have in our criminal justice system, and it just might be the best in the world, innocent people can and do end up facing the death penalty, and possibly executed. Look at the mess Texas Governor Rick Perry finds himself in now surrounding the 2004 execution of convicted murderer Cameron Todd Willingham. Willingham was convicted of setting a fire that killed his three daughters. His case has lead to three investigations in the five years since, including testimony from seven arson investigators considered to be among the best in the U.S., that found no evidence the fires in question were intentionally set by Willingham or anyone else. Last month when it appeared one of the experts hired by the state’s Forensic Science Commission was about to deliver news Perry didn’t want to hear — that the state executed an innocent man — Perry replaced three of the nine members with cronies more likely to tell him what he wants to hear. Death penalty supporters need to consider the costs and the percentage of innocent people they are willing to put to death to keep the ultimate penalty in place. I think most rational people would agree that it’s just not worth it. Readers can write to Russell at P.O. Box 2090, Asheville, NC 28802; phone him at 236-8973; or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009910110338
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