Death penalty = LWOP x 400%

[DLaw911]

Interesting article written by law professor and member of California's Commission on Fair Administration of Justice Gerald Uelman:
http://www.callawyer.com/story.cfm?eid=902598&evid=1

This is a short article but it described the reason that dealth penalty cases are so expensive and why appeals take so long.

In part the article states a death sentence is in most cases a sentence of life without parole except it costs 4 times as much as the same case where death is not sought. A conservative estimate is the death penalty law in California costs the taxpers $137.7 million dollars that could be saved by reserving special circumstances to life without parole.

[notluzn]

Which mean these guys need a $.50 bullet in their heads.

[jimjames418]

Which mean these guys need a $.50 bullet in their heads.
And the guys family pays for the bullet.

[gdoane]

The only reason the death penalty is crippled is because of outright sabotage by liberal judges and lawyers. This purposeful assault against the rule of lawful legislation is nothing short of treason.

If a lawyer is found to be committing incompetent representation in order to help a killer escape justice, that's not lawyering. That's aiding and abetting after the fact.

[DLaw911]

Which mean these guys need a $.50 bullet in their heads.Before or after the trial?? Because the bucks were talking about are just for the bifurcated trial. The appeals that follow a conviction can add millions of TAXPAYER bucks to each case.

That's why it's much cleaner when a clearly guilty person has the common dignity to make the crime a murder suicide. At least if they're going to do the crime they can at least save the State millions of dollars.

[DLaw911]

And the guy's family pays for the bullet.Does he have a choice of caliber?

[DLaw911]

The only reason the death penalty is crippled is because of outright sabotage by liberal judges and lawyers. This purposeful assault against the rule of lawful legislation is nothing short of treason.

If a lawyer is found to be committing incompetent representation in order to help a killer escape justice, that's not lawyering. That's aiding and abetting after the fact.Many criminal defense attorneys, if not most, will not try death penalty cases. Not only is there the emotional commitment, the rules are dramatically different from all other criminal cases. Also, very few persons charged with capital murder can afford private counsel so it falls on the State to appoint attorneys. Believe it or not in some States lawyers willing to defend capital cases are paid a flat rate that would barely pay their alcohol tab for a month.

Competency of legal representation is rarely grounds for reversal. Appellate courts rarely reverse cases based in incompetency of counsel (IAC). Heck, they executed a guy in Texas who's attorney was seen sleeping during cross examination of a witness by the prosecutor.

I'm not sure why you got off onto the "liberal judges, etc" stuff because reversals of death sentences are usually the result of overzealous prosecutors who commit misconduct, or trial judges who are afraid of making legal rulings against the prosecution. Unlike LWOP cases, death cases are subjected to extreme scrutiny based on legal arguments. Appeals, however, do not retry a case so the issue of insufficient evidence is not appealable. Factual innocense based on newly discovered evidence can only be attacked by extraordinary writ and you must be able to prove (1) the evidence was unknown at the time of trial or could not have been discovered by due diligence AND (2) that had the evdence been available at trial the jury WOULD have found the defendant innocent. In reality most death verdicts are ultimately upheld.

The delays, as I said before and as Uelmen notes, is finding appellate counsel. There are not a lot of lawyers qualified to handle death penalty appeals.

[sgdp]

One of the reasons I'm against the death penalty.

[gdoane]

Many criminal defense attorneys, if not most, will not try death penalty cases.

Then they don't have the guts to do the job and they shouldn't be in the biz at all. The penalty is none of the concern of the lawyer. That's what the Judge and Jury do.

Not only is there the emotional commitment, the rules are dramatically different from all other criminal cases.

Why are the rules different? Is it because of institutional sabotage from the inner sanctum by scores of liberal lawyers to deny conservatives their rightful justice?

Also, very few persons charged with capital murder can afford private counsel so it falls on the State to appoint attorneys.

That's not a real law, that's more legislation from the bench by liberal judges. Gideon V. Wainwright was a boneheaded decision by a bunch of damned hippies in 1963. "Counsel" in the Sixth Amendment does not mean "LAWYER". Thomas Jefferson knew what a lawyer was, he WAS one. If the Sixth Amendment meant "LAWYER" then it would have said "LAWYER" in no uncertain terms. All the "right to counsel" means is that the accused can ASK for help from anyone he chooses (not necessarily a lawyer) and the Government cannot deny his right to ask. In no way does it mean the Government is required to provide a lawyer and the stretch that the word "counsel" in the US Constitution means "lawyer" is unsupported by any documentation other than a ridiculous 1963 Hippie court decision.

It's a ridiculous assertion that while the government is trying to prosecute you to death with the right hand, it's simultaneously trying to save you with the left hand. Holy Conflict of Interest, Batman!

Believe it or not in some States lawyers willing to defend capital cases are paid a flat rate that would barely pay their alcohol tab for a month.

I believe it, and I also believe that they'd sabotage with malice and aforethought the justice system that they disagree with rather than respecting the will of the people and the law of the Republic. They're not heroes, they're traitors bending the rule of law to their own design and denying the will of the people.

Competency of legal representation is rarely grounds for reversal. Appellate courts rarely reverse cases based in incompetency of counsel (IAC). Heck, they executed a guy in Texas who's attorney was seen sleeping during cross examination of a witness by the prosecutor.

Is the creep supposed to be innocent because his attorney fell asleep? His guilt or innocence doesn't depend on what his mouthpiece does, it's about what he did. It's not as if he were executed for what his lawyer did.


I'm not sure why you got off onto the "liberal judges, etc" stuff because reversals of death sentences are usually the result of overzealous prosecutors who commit misconduct, or trial judges who are afraid of making legal rulings against the prosecution.

The sentences aren't reversed, they're remanded. They're not calling the creeps "not guilty", they're just commuting the sentence and that in itself is an injustice. The sentence has nothing to do with the misconduct of prosecutors and everything to do with the misconduct of the guilty bastard who needs to taste his punishment.

Unlike LWOP cases, death cases are subjected to extreme scrutiny based on legal arguments.

Are you ACTUALLY arguing that one type of crook deserves more equal rights than another type of crook? That it's fair for Shelly Shoplifter to get sentenced with no appeals while Axel Axekiller gets 20 solid years of limitless appeals to clear his name with?

That's not even close to the concept of all men being created equal. If one crook gets unlimited appeals at State expense, then ALL crooks deserve the same thing.

Appeals, however, do not retry a case so the issue of insufficient evidence is not appealable. Factual innocense based on newly discovered evidence can only be attacked by extraordinary writ and you must be able to prove (1) the evidence was unknown at the time of trial or could not have been discovered by due diligence AND (2) that had the evdence been available at trial the jury WOULD have found the defendant innocent. In reality most death verdicts are ultimately upheld.

Then the appeals serve no purpose to do anything but waste time and money. Get rid of them.

The delays, as I said before and as Uelmen notes, is finding appellate counsel. There are not a lot of lawyers qualified to handle death penalty appeals.

The appeal shouldn't even be about the sentence, it should be about the crime. If the creep is appealing because he's guilty but he doesn't like the price he's got to pay then that's just silliness. He committed a capital crime, and the ONLY valid reason for appeal is that he didn't commit the crime, NOT that the sentence is undeserved.

[gdoane]

One of the reasons I'm against the death penalty.

The death penalty is a natural law. Many crimes impose it before courts even get involved.

Drunk driving. Jaywalking. Illegal drugs. Copper theft on live wires.

Of course, if nature does it, liberals don't think it's wrong. It's only when PEOPLE do it that anything is wrong.

Let me submit the following case example:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/02/state/n105954D23.DTL

************************************************** *****************
2 electrocuted during SoCal wire theft

Tuesday, June 2, 2009
(06-02) 11:56 PDT San Jacinto, Calif. (AP) --


Two men trying to steal wire were electrocuted early Tuesday in an incident that also blacked out part of the city, authorities said.


Police responded at 1:20 a.m. to reports of fireworks near an electrical utility facility and found a fire burning, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.


Firefighters located the bodies when the fire was put out, the department said.
"The preliminary investigation revealed the two adult males were attempting to commit a theft of wires when they were accidentally electrocuted," the statement said.


The men's names were withheld pending confirmation of their identities by the county coroner's bureau and notification of relatives.


The incident involved an above-ground metal vault structure that houses a transformer and other high-voltage equipment, said Steve Conroy, a spokesman for Southern California Edison.


About 1,600 utility customers were affected by the outage, but most got power back within a minute and the rest within an hour, Conroy said.
************************************************** *******************************************



That's Darwinian justice. These idiots are dead as doornails (and about as intelligent), basically "GOT THE CHAIR" because they committed a stupid and dangerous crime.

Their deaths aren't exactly a tragedy. Their crime is worse than it sounds because taking power out to over a thousand people, some of whom may be elderly and/or on oxygen concentrators who require power for life critical equipment could very well kill somebody and these creeps didn't care. And they don't care now, because they're dead and justly so.

Things about the article that bother me:

Their deaths are referred to as "accidental". That's not really true. If you're screwing around with a gazillion volts on a live wire in the hopes of maybe getting 100 pounds of copper (at $2.20 per pound), that's suicidal.

Go ahead and ask anybody (anybody sane that is) if they'd grab an energized high voltage wire from a power company yard for $220 and if they say "yes" then they're suicidal because they'll never live to spend the money. Either that or too stupid to live.

They're withholding named pending notification of next of kin. I hope these idiots didn't actually breed. The poetry of Darwinian Justice is totally lost if they have a next of kin.

I guess the point is, nobody is really bothered when criminals die in the act. This article is from the San Francisco Gate, as liberal media as liberal media gets and there's no call for SoCal to make their facilities more survivable for errant copper thieves.

Heck, 1600 people without power because of these two jokers trying to make what, maybe $500 max in a theft would probably want to kill these creeps themselves.

The death penalty isn't expensive at all when you count the natural-born sentences.

[dittoheadAZ]

Interesting article written by law professor and member of California's Commission on Fair Administration of Justice Gerald Uelman:
http://www.callawyer.com/story.cfm?eid=902598&evid=1

This is a short article but it described the reason that dealth penalty cases are so expensive and why appeals take so long.

In part the article states a death sentence is in most cases a sentence of life without parole except it costs 4 times as much as the same case where death is not sought. A conservative estimate is the death penalty law in California costs the taxpers $137.7 million dollars that could be saved by reserving special circumstances to life without parole.

If they limited it to 1 appeal and required either DNA evidence, an admission, or incontrovertible guilt such as being seen by witnesses and captured right away, then a $1 bullet would save $137,699,999.

Too bad there are too many liberals in the Court system.

[DLaw911]

If they limited it to 1 appeal and required either DNA evidence, an admission, or incontrovertible guilt such as being seen by witnesses and captured right away, then a $1 bullet would save $137,699,999.

Too bad there are too many liberals in the Court system.Plenty of death verdicts have been overturned by conservative appellate justices. And don't forget that death is not automatic in a special circumstances case. The defense gets a second trial to show mitigation. The prosecution gets to prove aggravation and the jury selects the sentence. If the sentence selected is death the trial judge is the 13th juror and can still sentence to LWOP (it happens once in a while). But even if a person is obviously guilty of a crime that does not mean he is not entitled to a fair sentencing hearing, and reversals often times involve what happens at THAT hearing and not during the guilt phase of the trial.

[dittoheadAZ]

Plenty of death verdicts have been overturned by conservative appellate justices. And don't forget that death is not automatic in a special circumstances case. The defense gets a second trial to show mitigation. The prosecution gets to prove aggravation and the jury selects the sentence. If the sentence selected is death the trial judge is the 13th juror and can still sentence to LWOP (it happens once in a while). But even if a person is obviously guilty of a crime that does not mean he is not entitled to a fair sentencing hearing, and reversals often times involve what happens at THAT hearing and not during the guilt phase of the trial.

That's fine. But my beef is with the endless appeals. THAT is where much of the cost comes from.

[DLaw911]

The death penalty is a natural law. Many crimes impose it before courts even get involved.I'm only responding to this part of your post because I cannot disagree with the rest. You, I and everyone else has the right to our individual opinions about the death penalty. I'm not saying you're wrong.

There is a reason why many lawyers will not touch death penalty cases and it is emotional toll. I know your position is that it is the judge and jury who makes that call but, in fact, it is the lawyer who has spent a year or more getting to know the defendant, preparing for trial and then sitting next to him for months trying the case.

A few years back I attended a seminar at which one of the speakers was a death penalty appellate lawyer (not trial lawyer) whose high profile (nameless) client had recently received the benefit of the death penalty. Now without identifying the lawyer or the inmate I can tell you if anyone deserve to die for criminal conduct it was this guy's lawyer. No remourse, cold blooded killer, no doubt about death. His basis for appeal was coerced confession and improper jury instructions at the penalty phase. The crime had occurred 25 years earlier. Even the defense attorney from the trial was long dead and buried. So this lawyer gets up to speak and five minutes into his talk he begins to relate his last conversation with his client and he broke down sobbing and could not continue. He took a break, tried again, and just gave up. His law partner, also visibly shaken, finished the lecture with tears running down his face. And, like I said, their client was a really horrible guy. But what they had to face was being the caretakers of this man's fight to remain alive and sometimes that is a very emotional task.

I've read about prison guards assigned to death row, especially those directly involved in carying out executions, who leave work on stress related workers compensation and never return. There is a difference between killing a man who is strapped down, rendered harmless who is crapping in his pants as compared to killing in self defense, in immediate defense of others or during battle. The two cannot be reconciled. I don't need you to say that lawyers should not be crybabies because in practice it is always better to remain emotionally detached. But that is easier said than done when you spend so much time with an accused person no matter how heinous his offense.

[DLaw911]

That's fine. But my beef is with the endless appeals. THAT is where much of the cost comes from.Appeals are not that long. There are also writs based on constitutional issues. The only way to shorten the appellate process is to spend a lot of money to put these cases on a faster track. And what do you do when an appellate court calendars an appeal for oral arguments a year or more later so the justices have a chance to read the transcripts and briefs and research the law so they can ask seemingly intelligent questions during the hearing.

[Paul31]

Judges and lawyers are already getting paid whether they have one case of 1,000 cases before them.

[gdoane]

I'm only responding to this part of your post because I cannot disagree with the rest. You, I and everyone else has the right to our individual opinions about the death penalty. I'm not saying you're wrong.

You disagree that the death penalty is natural in the course of crime? Michael Jackson's death penalty offense was drug abuse. He screwed up and paid the price. Darwinian Law isn't big on long lengthy appeals and neither should American law be so.

Our Constitution holds a requirement for "speedy and public trial" as enumerated in the sixth Amendment for ALL CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS. To wit:

Amendment VI:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

I don't know exactly by what timeline "speedy" means but I'm certain that 20+ YEARS of appeals aren't "speedy".

I know what "all" means. It means "without exception". So all criminal trials, without exception, shall be speedy and public.

The net effect of endless appeals are to extend the trial for decades, a brazen violation of the Sixth Amendment right that trials be speedy and public, ESPECIALLY considering the fact that most appeals are closed-door affairs far removed from public purview in violation of both the letter and spirit of the law.


There is a reason why many lawyers will not touch death penalty cases and it is emotional toll. I know your position is that it is the judge and jury who makes that call but, in fact, it is the lawyer who has spent a year or more getting to know the defendant, preparing for trial and then sitting next to him for months trying the case.

The lawyer's job isn't to get to know the defendant, it's to know the law. The Constitution speaks of impartiality and the requirement for speedy trial is wisdom that helps maintain impartiality.

A few years back I attended a seminar at which one of the speakers was a death penalty appellate lawyer (not trial lawyer) whose high profile (nameless) client had recently received the benefit of the death penalty. Now without identifying the lawyer or the inmate I can tell you if anyone deserve to die for criminal conduct it was this guy's lawyer. No remourse, cold blooded killer, no doubt about death. His basis for appeal was coerced confession and improper jury instructions at the penalty phase. The crime had occurred 25 years earlier. Even the defense attorney from the trial was long dead and buried. So this lawyer gets up to speak and five minutes into his talk he begins to relate his last conversation with his client and he broke down sobbing and could not continue. He took a break, tried again, and just gave up. His law partner, also visibly shaken, finished the lecture with tears running down his face. And, like I said, their client was a really horrible guy. But what they had to face was being the caretakers of this man's fight to remain alive and sometimes that is a very emotional task.

So basically what you're telling me is that the creep who committed the crime is still hurting people 25 years later. If the death penalty had been carried out same day service (which is what "speedy" means to me) his ass would be 6 feet under and he wouldn't be plying his craft of hurting people for a quarter century.

LWOP isn't a solution because these criminals are masters of head games. Given time, which is exactly what endless appeals give them, they can con an onion out of all of its skins.



I've read about prison guards assigned to death row, especially those directly involved in carying out executions, who leave work on stress related workers compensation and never return.

I've talked to prison guards who have been threatened by inmates who told them they googled their names and they have their address, their relatives addresses, and used that information for death threats.

The bad guys have no problem with killing us and our loved ones. When we have a problem returning the favor, we grant them power over us. This is the basic premise by which terrorists seek power over our minds and lives.

The key is speed. The death penalty should be carried out immediately if not sooner. Just execute the condemned bastard and then start the appeals process. You won't have the problem of lawyers getting to know and love the creep.


There is a difference between killing a man who is strapped down, rendered harmless who is crapping in his pants as compared to killing in self defense, in immediate defense of others or during battle. The two cannot be reconciled.

My basic disagreement here is that a man can be rendered harmless. LIKE HELL a man can be rendered harmless. You're talking about bar none the most dangerous predator on Earth. The one species which can kill any other species. The top of the food chain. You will NEVER render a man harmless unless... you kill him. Execution is the only way to render the most dangerous animal on this planet harmless.

I consider execution to be a form of defense. Maybe not self defense, but national defense. Aren't we allowed to kill our enemies? If not, then we may as well surrender to Al Qaeda now and get our prayer rugs ready. Mecca is to the East.

I don't need you to say that lawyers should not be crybabies because in practice it is always better to remain emotionally detached. But that is easier said than done when you spend so much time with an accused person no matter how heinous his offense.

I like that I'm so predictable in my responses. You basically nailed it. My solution would be to stop giving the accused so much time to spend conning lawyers. Bad guys are bad guys to whomever they can be bad guys to, including lawyers.

[DLaw911]

Judges and lawyers are already getting paid whether they have one case of 1,000 cases before them.That's the opinion any lay person would offer but it's not correct. In fact death penalty cases require special prosecutors, more employees and the full commitment of courtrooms to handle just one single case. In most every case the county is going to have to shell out a lot of extra money in investigators, experts and qualified death penalty lawyers.

[DLaw911]

You disagree that the death penalty is natural in the course of crime? Michael Jackson's death penalty offense was drug abuse. He screwed up and paid the price. Darwinian Law isn't big on long lengthy appeals and neither should American law be so.But MJ did not die at the hands of the state and he essentially signed his own death warrant.
I like that I'm so predictable in my responses. You basically nailed it. My solution would be to stop giving the accused so much time to spend conning lawyers. Bad guys are bad guys to whomever they can be bad guys to, including lawyers.I'm always impressed that you are consistent in your opinion. That's good. Being wishy washy is a sign of weakness.

[gdoane]

That's the opinion any lay person would offer but it's not correct. In fact death penalty cases require special prosecutors, more employees and the full commitment of courtrooms to handle just one single case. In most every case the county is going to have to shell out a lot of extra money in investigators, experts and qualified death penalty lawyers.

I consider that wrong. Basically wrong. Legally, there's no more weight to a traffic ticket than to a murder charge. After all, innocent until proven guilty means all defendants are equal before the law, no matter what the charge may be.

"Special prosecutors?" Good grief, that's making Mount Molehill. There's nothing special about the death penalty. It's just a simple sentence. Grab a piece of rope, find a tree, and hang the condemned bastard.

The "lot of extra money" is unwarranted and only happens because of legal beagles throwing spike strips onto the road to Justice. No criminal case has more or less merit than any other criminal case. We live in a land where all men are created equal, and all men are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

If I'm accused of jaywalking, and my neighbor is Osama Bin Laden, then why in the Hell does my neighbor get "special prosecutors" from a court system that pretends to practice presumptive innocence?

The extra costs are purely artificial. It's not the death penalty which is expensive, it's the legal beagles feeding at the trough for 20+ years on the public dime representing Axel Axekiller for a living they can retire on making the death penalty expensive.

Yes, we're talking about MILLIONS of dollars. Dollars which go where? Into lawyer pockets maybe? And dollars which come out of where? From my pockets, maybe?

ALL ACCUSATIONS carry the same legal weight. NO WEIGHT AT ALL. Until a jury decides, and what do juries pay lawyers? Oh, that's right, juries don't HIRE lawyers!

The extra costs are all imposed by legal beagles sucking the system dry, parasites pretending to care about rights and freedoms and then making a run for the deep pockets of the Federal government as "defenders".

There's no legitimate case to be made for a traffic ticket to cause more court costs than a mass murderer costs.

If presumptive innocence is the model, then why does the penalty matter at all?