As the year draws to a close, media outlets in a number of states are looking at capital punishment developments during 2008.
"Executions, death sentences down in 2008, but Alabama has set 5 executions for 2009," is the title of the Birmingham News report written by Eric Velasco.
The number of executions nationally this year hit a 14-year low, but a surge is expected in early 2009 as states such as Alabama plan multiple executions, national and state observers say.
Several scheduled executions were halted in 2008 while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a case involving lethal injection, the method used in most of the 36 states that allow capital punishment.
After the court upheld lethal injection in April, 37 murderers were executed in nine states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center's annual look at capital punishment statistics and trends.
Eight executions are scheduled nationwide in January and another seven in March, according to the Washington-based DPIC. A total of 21 have been set through May, led by Texas with 11.
Alabama has set five executions between Jan. 15 and May 14. The first scheduled is James Callahan, convicted in the 1992 murder of Rebecca Suzanne Howell in Calhoun County.
Despite the surge in executions after an eight-month moratorium, the DPIC report noted diminishing support for the death penalty.
Fewer judges and juries are imposing death sentences, and public support has diminished, the center's report said.
A Gallup Poll in October showed 64 percent of respondents favored capital punishment for murder, down from 69 percent last year and 80 percent at its peak in 1980.
"Courts, legislatures and the public are increasingly skeptical about the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, executive director of DPIC. "Those concerns are based on innocence, inadequate legal representation, costs or a general feeling that the system isn't fair."
Alabama Attorney General Troy King, a proponent of expanding the crimes subject to capital punishment, declined comment.
In Indiana, the Bloomington Alternative has, "Capital punishment in Indiana," by Linda Greene.
Executions are legal in 59 countries; the United States is one of them. Executions are legal in 36 states, one of which is Indiana. It's pointless to debate the morality of the death penalty: arguments about personal belief and individual opinion are unresolvable through discussion. Instead, it makes sense to assess the merits of the death penalty in terms of public policy. Is capital punishment sound public policy?
The death penalty is expensive. According to Chris Hitz-Bradley, an Indianapolis attorney and president of the Indiana Information Center to Abolish Capital Punishment (IICACP), writing in the Indiana Abolitionist, "The cost of just the initial trial and appeal of a capital case [in Indiana] is estimated at $300,000 to $500,000. The state's economists" he goes on to say, "have estimated that 'the cost of this first phase of a capital case is 1/3 more than a case of life without parole.'"
Hitz-Bradley also points out, "The cumulative cost of all the various phases of a death penalty case can easily mount to" $1-2 million. The reason is the extensive appeals process in Indiana. Besides the initial appeal and request for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a case, the two remaining phases of a capital trial -- state post-conviction and federal habeus corpus -- add to the costs.
In one capital case in Indiana, just the transcript of the original trial needed during the appeal process cost $92,000. No matter what county they reside in, Hoosiers end up paying for a huge amount of the costs of a death penalty case. In the Hoosier state and the nation as a whole, it costs less to maintain inmates in prison for whole lifetimes than it does to execute them.
"In N.C., death penalty gets rarer," is the report by Dan Kane in today's Raleigh News & Observer.
North Carolina will finish this year with just one defendant sentenced to death, a record low since the penalty was reinstated 31 years ago.
The single capital murder conviction this year continues a downward trend fueled by better criminal defense lawyers and new laws that exclude the mentally challenged and make prosecution evidence more accessible.
In North Carolina, more people on death row have been exonerated this year -- two -- than were sentenced to death. A de facto death penalty moratorium in North Carolina -- as the courts, state officials and the medical profession debate the ethics of lethal injections -- has prevented anyone from being executed for the past two years.
This year, 13 juries could have chosen death for defendants. Only one in Forsyth County did. Last month, a jury there gave the death sentence to James Ray Little III for shooting a cab driver to death two years ago in Winston-Salem. There will be no more capital murder trials before Wednesday, the end of the year.
"Only one death sentence, when you think about it, is extraordinary," said Gerda Stein, a spokeswoman for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham, which represents death row defendants who appeal their sentences.
The numbers suggest that juries are less likely to impose the ultimate punishment. In 1996, there were 60 capital trials resulting in 34 death sentences in North Carolina.
Coverage of DPIC's 2008 report is here.
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