Saturday, November 03, 2007
Death of Capital Punishment???
Recent court decisions have effectively halted executions in the United States. However, it's just a matter of time before the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the issue of lethal injection, states adopt new measures to comport with their ruling and the death gurneys sally forth again.
Nonetheless, The New York Times has an interesting article about the exorbitant cost to prosecute capital murder cases and how the cost may do what thousands of vigils and letter writing by abolitionists have been unable to do: stop state sanctioned killing.
It seems that with litigation expenses rising as high as $1.2 million or more, "many experts predict that the cost issue will have far broader implications for the future of the death penalty" than any constitutional claim of cruel and unusual punishment.
"This is the way the world, ends," the famous poet T.S. Eliot once wrote. "Not with a bang but a whimper." And so it might be that capital punishment enters the relic of anti-sodomy laws into America's shameful legal past.
Nonetheless, The New York Times has an interesting article about the exorbitant cost to prosecute capital murder cases and how the cost may do what thousands of vigils and letter writing by abolitionists have been unable to do: stop state sanctioned killing.
It seems that with litigation expenses rising as high as $1.2 million or more, "many experts predict that the cost issue will have far broader implications for the future of the death penalty" than any constitutional claim of cruel and unusual punishment.
States unwilling to pay the huge costs of defending people charged in capital cases may be unable to conduct executions.That's right; equal justice under the law demands that states provide adequate resources for a robust defense. And "[s]tates unwilling to pay the huge costs of defending people charged in capital cases may be unable to conduct executions."
"This is the way the world, ends," the famous poet T.S. Eliot once wrote. "Not with a bang but a whimper." And so it might be that capital punishment enters the relic of anti-sodomy laws into America's shameful legal past.
// posted by Howling Latina @ 10:03 PM 
