Lawmakers must weigh all sides in debate over death penalty - analysis

Hot on the heals of this letter to the editor, the Chronicle published its opinion. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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Lawmakers in Helena last week tabled a bill to abolish the death penalty in Montana. Absent extraordinary efforts on the part of activists and their legislative supporters, it will probably not be resurrected. But this
important issue deserves at least one more look.

Passions run high among both ardent supporters and opponents to the death penalty. In those camps, it’s unlikely that any minds will change.

But most Montana voters have never been close to a capital punishment case. (There is no requirement to be close to a capital punishment case in order to have an informed opinion.) And though nearly everyone has some opinion on the issue, most are unaware of some of the most important facts regarding the death penalty. (How do they know what "most" people are aware of?)

Consider just these five things:

• It costs more to put a convicted criminal to death than it does to house them in prison for life, by a considerable amount. (This only means that the opponents of the death penalty have been successful in making it difficult to execute someone. This means that death penalty opponents have, in essence, created their own reason to argue against the death penalty.) Appeals mandated by the U.S. and state constitutions (I was unable to find any mention of death penalty appeals in the Montana Constitution. The US Constitution does not contain the word "appeal" at all.) delay the execution for many years — even decades. That involves major legal costs that have to be shouldered by the taxpayers. And every time the case heads into another round of hearings, the survivors of the victims are forced to relive the crime again. (Once again, this cruelty has been inflicted by death penalty opponents in their efforts to make the death penalty difficult to exact.)

• Modern DNA technology has found cases where innocent people have been executed in other states. It’s a very small number of cases, but it has happened. (In other words, advancing technology has made it easier to ensure the convicted person is really guilty. Therefore, incidences of false convictions are going to be even more rare.)

•  There is a fate worse than death. Research has consistently shown that holding prisoners in solitary confinement suffer an extraordinary kind of torture — so much so that there is a strong argument to be made that it violates the Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. (How does this argue against imposing the death penalty? If we apply the logic of death penalty opponents to this, we must then be opposed to this punishment. Therefore, imprisoning people should be morally reprehensible as well!) Even so, it offers an alternative to death for those criminals the courts decide are particularly heinous. (How do they arrive at this conclusion? The death penalty is bad, so is life in prison, but life in prison offers an acceptable alternative?)

• The death penalty is rarely used in this state. There have been just three executions since 1976 and just 74 in the state’s history. There are now just two prisoners held on the state’s death row. (Its rare use would seem to indicate that there's a lot of hubbub over a sentence that hardly ever comes to fruition. We need to ask, how many people have committed capital offenses but received a life sentence when the death penalty could have been imposed? The reason this is important is that the life sentence may have been selected by juries who were squeamish about imposing the death penalty, for a variety of reasons, including the perceived difficulty in getting an actual execution. In other words, the death penalty opponents are to blame for this.)

• This is a non-partisan issue. The bill that would abolish the Montana death penalty was sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats. (Just because there are both Democrat and Republican sponsors does not make it non-partisan. It most certainly is a political issue, because it's a matter of law, and politicians make the law. They will make the law based on what they believe about the death penalty, and that is by definition a partisan decision.)

The death penalty is an emotional issue that evokes passionate responses. But any opinion deserves at least some consideration of these important facts. (Well, we have seen the faulty basis of their interpretation of these facts. One might wonder, however, what other facts come to bear on the situation, facts not related to us by the Chronicle's opinion writers. For example, the families of the victims. What are their feelings regarding the death penalty? How do they like being run through the ringer because of all the obstacles the death penalty opponents put in the way of carrying out the sentence? And what about those who might be considering taking someone's life? If they know that the death penalty is rarely recommended and even more rarely carried out, then might they feel a little more inclined to carry out their evil intent? Clearly there are more facts that we ought to consider, notwithstanding the Chronicle's opinions about the matter.)