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DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION
Every Member Material - January 2007
Study Committee: Cath Perrone, Carolyn Boyd, Pat Mesec, Connie Rayor, and Ann Roux
LEAGUE BACKGROUND
At the 2006 National Convention the following became our position:
“The League of Women Voters of the United States supports the abolition of the death penalty.”
The impact of this concurrence is as follows: If Jeffco Leaguers wish, we may choose to ignore the national position and do nothing at the state/federal level. In the future, we may choose to oppose the death penalty, citing the national position. Either way, Jeffco Leaguers NOW have the flexibility to take action on this issue.
The following material has been compiled to provide information relative to the League’s national position. This committee examined information from several League studies and from organizations opposing and supporting the death penalty. Pertinent issues relate to deterrence, racial bias, costs, innocence, fairness, and international ramifications.
INTRODUCTION
On October 13, 1997, the execution of 53-year-old Gary Lee Davis was Colorado’s first in 30 years, and he was the first to be executed by the current method of lethal injection.
There are currently two death-row inmates in Colorado: Nathan Dunlap, who murdered four people at a pizza parlor in Aurora in 1993, and Edward Montour Jr., who murdered a guard in the Limon prison in October 2002.
Twelve states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia do not have a death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The Federal Government, the U.S. Military and all the "southern states" including Maryland (38 states) have the death penalty as a punishment option, although they do not all agree on the eligible crimes or whether age, insanity or other circumstances may prevent execution. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against execution of the mentally retarded in 2002. Of the 38 states, only 16 barred the execution of those who were under 18 when the crime was committed. On March 1, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court forbade the execution of offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.
In 2005, 128 inmates were sent to death row. It was the third consecutive year with a decline in year-long totals with the lowest number of prisoners put on death row since 1973. Sixty-six fewer inmates were on death row at the end of 2005 than in 2004. That was a decrease for the fifth straight year. Lengthy trials, inevitable years of appeals in capital murder cases, and possibility of innocence may have influenced this decline.
In the first 11 months of 2006, 52 inmates had been executed. Sixteen states executed 60 prisoners in 2005, one more than in 2004.
HISTORY OF DEATH PENALTY IN COLORADO
· Until 1889, all of the hangings in Colorado were carried out by the local counties, cities, or towns where the conviction took place. During this period twenty-five men were legally hanged.
· In 1889, the state took over the responsibility of executing the convicted men. Forty-five men were hanged by the state before the state instituted lethal gas as the method of execution in 1934.
· Thirty -two men were executed by lethal gas before the 1972 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, Furman v. Georgia, declared the death penalty unconstitutional.
· In 1965 a ballot issue to abolish the death penalty was defeated by a 2 to 1 margin. Colorado has consistently supported the death penalty, except for a brief period from 1897 to 1901 when the penalty was abolished.
· After the 1976 U. S. Supreme Court case of Gregg v. Georgia upheld sentencing formulas that allowed death sentences in some cases where aggravating circumstances were determined to be present, Colorado went through several changes in the statute to address the aggravating circumstances and mitigating factors required by the court in determining death sentences.
· In 1988 the Colorado Legislature changed the method of execution to death by lethal injection.
· In 1997 Gary Lee Davis became the first person to be executed by lethal injection.
· In 1995 the Colorado Legislature decided to remove the life or death decision from the hands of the jurors and give the decision to a three judge panel.
· In 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Ring v. Arizona that jurors, not judges, must be responsible for finding the statutory aggravators needed to justify the death sentence. The sentencing authority for the death sentence is now back in the hands of the jurors in Colorado. Because of the Supreme Court ruling, persons who had been sentenced to death by the three judge panels were re-sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This affected Robert Harlan, George Woldt, Francisco Martinez, and Cody Wayne Neal.
· In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ended the execution of those with mental retardation. The decision reflects the national consensus which has formed on this issue.
· In March 2005, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for those who had committed their crimes before age 18 was cruel and unusual punishment.
· Currently two inmates are on Colorado’s death row.
Recent Colorado Death Penalty Cases:
· July 2006 - Prosecutors in nine states including Colorado are free to seek the death penalty against confessed serial killer Robert Charles Browne.
· October 19, 2006 –The death penalty will be sought in the case involving two inmates accused of stabbing another prisoner to death in 2004.
· December 8, 2006 - Brian Washington was charged with first-degree murder of a police officer, an offense which can carry a death penalty if sentenced by a jury.
Jefferson County Recent Murder Outcomes:
· Oct. 27. 2006 – Robert Edward Hill was sentenced to life in prison plus 48 years for the beating death of 21-month-old Tivian Petefish in December, 2004.
· Nov. 9. 2006 - Keason Burell Cox was convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree in the shooting deaths of two Lakewood women and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
· Nov. 27, 2006 - Casimer Gwizdalski was sentenced to 11 years in prison for the death of a man in Coal Creek Canyon. Gwizdalski had been drinking and hit a man who was riding his bicycle along the right shoulder.
FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF THE DEATH PENALTY
The cost of prosecuting a capital case is exceedingly high. Various state commissions, universities, and publications have undertaken studies to determine how the cost of prosecuting such cases and executing the convicted person compares to prosecuting a non-capital case and incarcerating the person for life. In fact capital cases are much more expensive and place a huge burden on the counties in which the cases are tried.
An Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission in January 2002 found that the total costs of the death penalty exceeded the complete costs of life without parole sentences by about 38%. This figure assumed that 20% of the death sentences were overturned and reduced to life. A Duke University study in 1993 found that the death penalty was costing North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The Dallas Morning News reported on March 8, 1992, that a death penalty case cost about three times as much as incarcerating someone in a single cell at the highest security for 40 years. It goes on.
Dartmouth College economist Katherine Baicker studied county budgets for 14 years. Her statistical analysis published in 2001 showed that counties that brought a death penalty case had a tax rate 1.6% higher than others. Those same counties spent 3.3% less on law enforcement and highways.
In fact, Jasper County, Texas, spent more than $1.02 million bringing death penalty cases against the three men accused of the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr. (the dragging death). Subsequently, the county was forced to raise property taxes 6.7% over two years. One defendant received a life sentence; the other two received the death penalty. The state of New Jersey has spent $253.3 million on its death penalty system since 1982 when the death penalty was reinstated. There have been 197 capital trials, 60 death penalty convictions of which 50 were reversed, and no executions.
Due to mandatory appeals required by the U.S. Supreme Court, a death row inmate will generally serve a minimum of 10 years at the Colorado State Penitentiary before execution. The average cost of incarcerating inmates at the Colorado State Penitentiary, including death row inmates, is $103.58 per day. The Colorado State Penitentiary is a Security Level V facility (maximum security) with a mission of incarcerating high-risk offenders. Due to heightened security requirements and increased staffing needs, the associated costs are higher than at a lower security facility.
THE EFFECT OF RACE AND GENDER ON THE DEATH SENTENCE IN COLORADO
The vast majority of research on the relationship between race and the death sentence conducted over the past thirty years has found that the death sentence is correlated with the victim’s race and ethnic origin, and not that of the defendant. The research on the effect of the gender of the victim in death penalty decisions is not as abundant as the research examining the race of the victim.
A team of researchers from the University of Colorado set out to ascertain whether death sentences in Colorado were being equitably pursued and applied as to race, gender and region. The team examined cases in which the death penalty was sought in Colorado for homicides that occurred from1980-1999. They then compared the various aspects of these cases with the cases where the death penalty was not sought.
The study concluded that the evidence suggests that death penalty decisions are not being made equitably in Colorado. The decisions of the prosecutors to seek the death penalty vary significantly across the state and are strongly correlated to the race, ethnicity and gender of the victim. The overall conclusion is that the death penalty is most likely to be sought for homicides with white female victims, and that the probability of death being sought is 4.2 times higher for those who kill whites than for those who kill blacks.
INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF THE DEATH PENALTY
The international community is moving toward abolition of the death penalty. Amnesty International reports that 122 nations are abolitionist in law or practice and 74 retain the penalty. Membership in the European Union is predicated on the elimination of the death penalty. Most other nations in the Western Hemisphere have abolished the death penalty.
Other countries cite the U.S. for violating international law when we sentence a foreign national to death. Many countries refuse to extradite a prisoner to the U.S. if he/she might face the death penalty here.
Of the known executions in 2005, only China (at least 1,770), Iran (at least 94), and Saudi Arabia (at least 86) executed more people that the United States (60). Next was Pakistan with 31.
The U.S. is also criticized for executing persons who were juveniles when they committed the capital offense. In 2000, the U.S. had 73 such persons on death row. Sixteen of those have been executed; eight were executed in Texas. By a vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court on March 1, 2005, held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid the execution of offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.
CONSTITUTION PROJECT STUDY RECOMMENDATIONS
The Constitution Project, housed at Georgetown University, seeks to develop bipartisan solutions to contemporary constitutional and governance issues by combining high-level scholarship and public education.
In May 2000, the Project created a death penalty initiative to address the “deeply disturbing risk that Americans are being wrongfully convicted of capital crimes or wrongfully sentenced to death.” They convened a 30 member panel to examine our country’s present course and to recommend ways to ensure fundamental fairness. The panel revisited the issue in 2006 to update their recommendations.
The group disagreed on much, including whether abolition of the death penalty is warranted. But they were united in the profound concern that procedural safeguards and assurances of fundamental fairness in the administration of capital punishment have been recently revealed as deeply flawed. “For too long, society has cast the death penalty debate as one between liberals and conservatives, those who are “soft on crime” and those who “care about victims of crime”. Stereotypes must be put aside.
Regardless of their stands on the abolition of the death penalty, all members agreed that no one should be denied basic constitutional protections, including a competent lawyer, a fair trial, and full judicial review of the conviction. Evidence discovery provisions for death penalty cases should be expanded. The Project’s recommendations include:
· Providing effective counsel by public defenders specialized in the practice of capital representation and adequate compensation for these services;
· Prohibiting execution of certain categories of defendants, such as mentally retarded, mentally ill and juveniles;
· Clarifying all sentencing options and explaining “life without parole” ramifications to jurors; providing information to jurors regarding their authority, options, and duty; safeguarding racial fairness;
· Requiring biological samples for current/future DNA testing;
· Recording interrogation of homicide suspects;
· Safeguarding against jurisdictional differences and prosecutorial discretion;
· Prohibiting judges from overriding a jury’s choice of life sentence instead of the death penalty.
The Project’s members asserted that the death penalty option should be limited to the most heinous offenses: murder of a peace officer, murder in prison, murder of two or more persons with intent, murder involving torture, and murder by a person already under investigation, on trial, or convicted of a felony.
The study project’s members believe that public education is needed to increase the general awareness and sensitivity of the public (and prospective jurors) to ramifications for a person accused of murder when the death penalty is chosen. Systemic review and reform of wrongful sentencing need to be the goals of our courts, concluded the Project members, thereby hopefully averting future errors in sentencing.
FAIRNESS
American Bar Association (ABA) called for a moratorium of the death penalty in 2000. The rationale for this stand, copied from the ABA website, explains the inequities of the system:
With its emphasis on presumed innocence and protection of individual rights, the United States criminal justice system often has served as a model for other nations. But in death penalty cases, the reality is far from the ideal, often lacking even basic due process. Administration of the death penalty, far from being fair and consistent, is instead a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency. As a practical matter, the best way to consider and fix these unfair practices requires removing the pressure of impending executions. The ABA, while taking no position on capital punishment per se, therefore has urged the federal and state governments to halt executions in order to take a hard look at the growing body of evidence showing that race, geography, wealth, and even personal politics can be factors at every stage of a capital case - from arrest through sentencing and execution.
P Racial and ethnic bias still are endemic in the criminal justice system.
P Geographic disparities still are rampant in the application of the death penalty.
P Mentally retarded individuals still are being executed. (‘02 US Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional)
P Young people still are being tried and sentenced to death for offenses they committed when they were under age 18. (‘05 US Supreme court ruled unconstitutional)
P And the innocent still are not protected adequately from erroneous conviction.
Indeed, our system cannot protect the innocent unless it is protecting everyone in a criminal justice system that administers capital punishment in a fair and nondiscriminatory way. Until that time, the need for a moratorium remains as urgent as ever, both to prevent further executions of individuals whose convictions and death sentences have been imposed by an unfair and arbitrary system and to ensure an atmosphere conducive to full and objective analysis of systemic problems and remedies.
Since the moratorium resolution’s adoption in 2000, discussion and debate of the issues it addresses have grown substantially. 19 of the 38 states that authorize capital punishment have considered legislation calling for a moratorium on executions; in 36 of those 38, there are active and growing moratorium campaigns; and more than 60 state and local governmental bodies have adopted their own resolutions calling for a moratorium.
REFERENCES
· Mandatory Justice: Eighteen Reforms to the Death Penalty. The Constitution Project, Washington D.C. 2001.
· Understanding Capital Punishment: A Guide Through the Death Penalty Debate. Death Penalty Information Center, Washington, D.C. 2003, plus on-line updates at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. (This is an anti-death penalty website)
· Stephanie Hindson, Hilary Potter and Michael L. Radelet, Race, Gender, Region and Death Sentencing in Colorado, 1980-1999, 77 University of Colorado Law Review 549 (2006).
· U.S. Department of Justice · Office of Justice Programs - Bureau of Justice Statistics www.ojp.gov/bjs/cp.htm
· League Studies: Illinois www.lwvil.org , Iowa www.lwvia.org, Maryland www.lwvmd.org, New York www.lwvny.org, New Jersey www.lwvnj.org,
· Amnesty International, http://web.amnesty.org
· Northwestern Law School study, www.law.northwestern.edu
· American Bar Association, www.abanet.org/moratorium/home.html
· US States Crime 2004 -2005 Crimes per 100,000 and Ranking www.disastercenter.com/crime/US_States_Rate_Ranking.html
· Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment 2003 report.; Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project
· Colorado Statutes
· Colorado State Public Defender’s - www.state.co.us/defenders/index.html
· The Constitution Project's Death Penalty Initiative is a bipartisan committee of death penalty supporters and opponents who all agree that the risk of wrongful executions in this country has become too high. www.constitutionproject.org/deathpenalty/index.cfm?categoryId=2
· A Brookings Judicial Issues Forum- On September 5th, The Brookings Institution continued its Judicial Issues Forum series with a discussion on whether the death penalty deters crime, whether it is administered fairly, whether death row exonerations prove the system a failure, whether federal courts should provide more-or less-supervision of state death sentences, and whether the abhorrence of our death penalty regime overseas should tip Americans of mixed views toward the abolitionist position. www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20060905.htm
· Coloradans Against the Death Penalty (CADP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to abolishing the death penalty in Colorado. We are concerned citizens, religious leaders, political leaders, criminal defense lawyers, and relatives of murder victims. www.coadp.org/about.html
· Pro-Death Penalty.com - http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
