We gain nothing from capital punishment | KY Standard.com http://www.kystandard.com/content/we- gain- nothing- capital- punishment
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We gain nothing from capital punishment
By The Kentucky Standard Editorial Board
Thursday, March 13, 2014 at 5:50 pm.
There continues to be much debate about the merits of capital punishment in Kentucky. There are also two proposed bills, HB 330
sponsored by Rep. David Floyd, a Bardstown Republican, and SB 77 sponsored by Sen. Gerald Neal, a Louisville Democrat, that are
making their way through Kentucky's legislative session to finally end the death penalty.
Since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty in the U.S., Kentucky has executed three people and currently has 33 inmates on
death row.
Whether your beliefs are liberal or conservative, there are many good, logical reasons why Kentucky's death penalty should be
abolished, and we hope this is the year that legislators will finally take action. We've certainly learned over the last 38 years that the
death penalty doesn’t deter crime, cannot be administered without human bias and is costly to the state. So what's the purpose of
such a broken, barbaric system?
The most compelling reason for the abolition of capital punishment is innocence. Since DNA testing was first introduced, 18 people
have been proven innocent and exonerated in the U.S. after serving time on death row for crimes they didn't commit. Who knows how
many innocent inmates were put to death only because DNA testing had not been discovered at the time? Who knows what next new
forensic science will be discovered a decade or two from now that could further prove the innocence of wrongly convicted inmates?
Costs are another compelling reason why the death penalty doesn't make good sense. Because of the mandatory appeals required
before an inmate can be executed, some experts estimate the costs of an execution can be up to three times more than that of life
imprisonment. The state Department of Public Advocacy estimates that Kentucky spends as much as $8 million a year prosecuting,
defending and incarcerating death-row inmates. This hard-to-come-by taxpayers’ money that's being spent to maintain Kentucky's
death penalty system just doesn’t make good use of our dollars and cents
Society as a whole continues to move away from supporting capital punishment. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have
abolished the death penalty and have chosen life without parole instead. Recent polling showed that Kentuckians are on the same
track with 67 percent preferring a life sentence over death. The days of believing that justice demands “an eye for an eye” and “a tooth
for a tooth” has given away to more moral and sound reasoning. What will we really gain from executing another human being?
Nothing.
Costly mistakes and human error have plagued this unfair, broken and arbitrary system we call capital punishment. Over the last 38
years, 60 percent of convictions in capital murder cases in Kentucky have been overturned.
And, finally, there's closure for the families. Years of appeals, possible new trials and uncertainty can weigh heavily on families in
capital punishment cases. Life sentences without parole provide some closure so families can start the healing process.
As a society, we have nothing to gain from capital punishment, and the arguments against the policy continue to stack up. We agree
with David Floyd on this issue. Kentucky's capital punishment is a broken government program that needs to be abolished now.
lofi 3/14/2014 9:22 AM
