Lost Opportunity Costs

Recently, a prosecutor explained his practical opposition to the death penalty: "I can successfully prosecute 10 murders or 30 sexual abuse cases in the time that it will take to do one death penalty case. Then, even if I get a death sentence, it will likely be overturned somewhere down the line. I'd rather give murder victims families closure now--get a conviction, put the guy in prison for life, forget about him, and let's help the victims rebuild their lives."

In short, the death penalty is costly, comes with a high reversal rate, and results in lost opportunities to provide real community safety and more community support for victims.

In the wake of the murders of four polcie officers by Maurice Clemmons, the Governor and various state legislators have called for a variety of criminal justice reforms. Those reforms will cost money and may not get put in place simply because of budget concerns. That would be a shame. Why not take money from the administration of the death penatly and fund those reforms? We are throwing away good money chasing something that we don't get and meanwhile lose the opportunity to do things that will work.

Rather than spend millions seeking a death sentence for the person who shot Officer Tim Brenton, why not take the money and put five new officers on the street?

Gov. Gregoire has a great idea--we should guarantee a fully paid college education for the children of the fallen officers. I agree. Let's get rid of the death penalty and instead of paying for decades of lawyers for killers, let's pay for four years of college education.

The death penalty is costly, both in terms of dollars and in lost opportunity costs. Those costs will not go away. Those costs are a required part of the administration of the death penalty--any judge, police officer or prosecutor will tell you that.

If we abolish the death penalty, we can save millions. We can also make our community safer, while providing services to victims.

Our criminal justice system, which is critically underfunded, is not working the way it should. On that point, we can all agree.

If we elimate the gallows, we will still sentence killers to die in prison--when their time is up. The difference will be instead of spending millions on the small chance that we'll execute one guy every decade or so, we can start making real reforms that can, at their best, prevent the next murderer from roaming free.