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Death penalty

Public safety requires prison, not killing

There is no question that, on July 20, 2012, James Holmes entered a crowded movie theater in Aurora, opened fire and killed 12 people, wounding 70 in the process. He has never denied his crime, and a jury convicted him of two counts of capital murder for each victim ­– plus two counts of attempted murder for each person he injured. The jury must now decide whether this killer should pay for his crime with his life. As tempting as it is to mete out such retribution – particularly in a case as clear as Holmes’ – the jury should refrain. Further, the state of Colorado should join the 19 states that have abolished the death penalty to end the practice altogether.

The fundamental dilemma is whether the role of the state is to administer punishment or to protect public safety. Imprisoning someone for his remaining days has an element of both, but the primary function is to keep society at large safe. In Holmes’ case, this can be done through life in prison, without possibility of parole.

It can also be done by executing him, but to what end? While the victims and their survivors may experience some satisfaction in knowing that the attacker will suffer and die in payment for his crime, the prolonged procedural environment that accompanies the death penalty is demonstrably costly to those victims and their families. The emotional wound remains open for years through appeals and various legal rehashing of heinous and painful crimes: In Colorado, death penalty cases take an average of four years longer to complete than those seeking life without parole sentences. This process cannot help but remind victims and their families of their losses and forestall the road to healing.

That emotional cost has a correlative financial one for the criminal justice system. According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, the average death penalty trial costs the state $3.5 million, compared to $150,000 for a life-without-parole trial. This is a significant public investment without a corresponding gain in public safety. There is no data suggesting that the death penalty serves as a deterrent for would-be killers, and the defendant is under state supervision throughout the process and beyond. The public is safe from further harm regardless of whether the death penalty is imposed or the killer is confined to life without possibility of parole.

Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who has made abolishing the death penalty her life’s work, was in Durango in September as part of Fort Lewis College’s Common Reading Experience discussing her book, Dead Man Walking. Hers is a plea for justice in a more comprehensive sense than the eye-for-an-eye mentality that drives death penalty advocacy. Prejean takes great issue with the notion of state-sponsored killing, and she is right to do so. How moral is a society that condemns death on one hand but endorses it the other? Instead, Prejean urges compassion: for victims, their families and the killers who caused their suffering. This is not a call for exoneration, but for us all to recognize the humanity each of us possesses and assess consequences within that framework – thereby keeping from the state the authority to decide who lives and dies.

The public-policy question must take into account the trade-off between individual rights and public safety. When someone crosses that line as egregiously as James Holmes did, he must be permanently confined so as to ensure that others are protected. This might not be “justice” in the Old Testament sense, but it is in terms of public policy, which must weigh the costs and benefits of its tenets. The death penalty is financially, emotionally and morally costly – to no quantifiable benefit. It is not appropriate for Holmes specifically or for the state of Colorado in general.



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