Capital Costs
                         Kenneth R. "Ken" Plum
 
       A federal court recently granted a stay of execution for a Texas man who was outside a convenience store when his partner killed a clerk inside the store.  The stay was based on the man's mental competence, but the court needs to consider the broader issue of whether a person who is not the "triggerman" can be executed for a crime.  Previous court decisions have left the issue unclear.  The Virginia House of Delegates has passed bills that I have opposed that would have expanded the death penalty to include persons who were accomplices to crimes to which the death penalty currently applies.  These bills failed in the Senate or were vetoed by the Governor.
 
       Recently a report from the Urban Institute found that a capital case in Maryland costs the taxpayers approximately $3 million, on average $1.9 million more than the cost of a similar case in which capital punishment is not sought.  Maryland currently has a moratorium on executions, and the state has executed only five persons since the death penalty was allowed by the Supreme Court in 1976.  In contrast, Virginia has executed 100 persons since that time, second only to Texas with 406 executions.  No one has been able to establish a linkage between crime rates in states and their capital punishment laws.
 
       In 2000 Earl Washington, Jr. was cleared of a 1982 rape and murder to which he had confessed and was sent to death row in Virginia after DNA proved someone else had committed the crime.  Washington was mildly retarded.  Virginia is continuing its review of past cases in which DNA evidence is available for testing using the latest techniques.  Just last month the state crime lab announced that it found through DNA testing that Curtis Moore had not committed the 1975 murder for which he was convicted.  Moore was mentally ill and had been freed from prison in 1983 by a federal appeals court because his Miranda rights had been violated.  Unfortunately he died four years ago.  Only his family will have the satisfaction of knowing that he has been exonerated.
 
       Justice must be delivered, and society must be protected.  Serious questions remain about the administration of the death penalty.
 
       An alternative to the high cost of capital cases in monies expended in their being tried and in human costs to those wrongly convicted is life in prison without parole.  Current laws are not evenly applied; all the cases mentioned included someone who was mentally ill or challenged.  Our system of justice sometimes makes mistakes.  Society is protected when a life sentence without parole is administered, and the high human and dollar costs are eliminated.