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DEATH PENALTY OPINION

Capital punishment is wrong.

I know it.You know it.

We know it is immoral. Murder in the first degree is the cold-blooded, premeditated killing of a fellow human being. It is the most wicked of crimes, and the government commits it in our name every time it executes a human being.

We know because we see who else practices it: In 2007, 88 percent of the executions carried out in the world were performed by China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Surely that is not the company we want to keep.

We know because the system is fatally flawed. We wrongly convict, condemn, and yes, execute innocent people.

Even if these reasons were not valid, capital punishment is wrong for Florida here and now because we simply can no longer afford its cost.

According to research performed by the Death Penalty Information Center, keeping inmates on Death Row costs Florida taxpayers more than $51 million a year more than holding them in prison for life. The Urban Institute study of Maryland concluded that, because of appeals, it costs as much as $1.9 million more for a prosecutor to put someone on Death Row than to put a person in prison. Perhaps the most extreme example is California, where The New York Times reports that death row costs taxpayers $114 million a year more than life imprisonment.

Capital prosecutions are more expensive for many reasons. Pretrial preparations and trials take longer. The cases typically involve more lawyers on both sides, more expert witnesses, and more courthouse security. More potential jurors. These cases are far more likely to involve multiple appeals.

Local cases demonstrate the high cost. Jim Chandler has been on Florida’s Death Row since 1981; David Gore since 1984. Still, their appeals continue, and taxpayers foot the bill for both sides. The 2007 trial of Eugene McWatters, the “Salerno Strangler,” cost Martin County more than a quarter of a million dollars. This did not include appeals.

When asked about the tremendous cost, Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl argues, “ ... cost should not be an issue. Public safety dictates that you don’t make decisions based on money.”

Of course, there is no evidence that sending a convict to Death Row makes us any safer than sending him to prison for life.

There are currently 386 people on Death Row, including 12 who arrived in the past 12 months. This year, Florida has executed two. Is that worth $51 million?

In these difficult economic times, there are so many better things we could be doing with our tax dollars.

Maryland, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia and Kansas have all had bills presented in their legislatures to eliminate the death penalty due to its cost.

It is time for Florida to do so as well.

Kessler, a board-certified criminal trial lawyer who handled post-conviction cases for Chandler and Gore, each on death row for more than two decades, lives in Vero Beach.