Sunday, 1-18-98--
FLORIDA:
The Jan. 6 editorial titled "Death penalty works" was
an unjustified cheap shot at Florida Supreme Court Justice Gerald
Kogan.
Apparently, it was in response to his recently publicized opinion
that the death penalty has become too expensive to administer.
For his part, Kogan merely said that we need to think about
whether we want to continue to spend vast amounts of our limited
resources on trying
to administer the death penalty, which also takes up too much of
the Florida Supreme Court's time.
Not with standing the argument that "forcing taxpayers to
support" death row defendants is another reason to keep the
death penalty, studies have
shown for years, beyond any doubt, that a life sentence costs
Florida taxpayers a fraction of what death penalty litigation
costs for that same defendant.
This means that many millions of dollars could be poured into
roads, schools and even prisons by simply giving these same
defendants life without parole.
The editorial suggested that Kogan and his colleagues on the
Supreme Court are lazy and that their "jobs would be easier
if there were no death penalty."
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The justices
would be working just as hard without death penalty cases to
review. There simply wouldn't be the tremendous backlog in their
decision-making.
The contention that death penalty appeals keep the courts busy
because the courts have granted these defendants many ways of
keeping their casesalive is totally false.
The courts have not created these remedies, with the main 1 being
the writ of habeas corpus, which happens to be in the U.S.
Constitution. Rather, it is the possibility that we might execute
an innocent person that keeps the courts vigilant about making
sure of the person's guilt.
The idea that capital punishment is a deterrent to other
homicides has long since been completely disproved. The death
penalty is only about revenge.
I probably would feel it, too, if the victim in a capital case
were a family member of mine.
However, the issue of the death penalty needs to be based on what
is good for our country in the years to come, not based on the
family's natural desire for retribution for a murder victim.
Countries with no death penalty typically have fewer murders than
we do.
Someday, we will put this barbaric business behind us.
STEPHEN J. WEINBAUM,
attorney,
Jacksonville
(source: Jacksonville Sun, Letter to the Editor)
--------------------------
Rick Halperin
AI-Texas
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