[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., MISS., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 28



TEXAS:

Racial bias found in Texas death penalty cases, Harvard Law School study says 
---- Harris County was named 1 of 16 'outlier' counties in the US, where 5 or 
more death sentences were assessed between 2010 and 2015


A Harvard Law School study has found that racial bias, overly aggressive 
prosecutions and inadequate representation for poor defendants affect death 
penalty cases in Harris County, Texas. Juries in the county, which includes 
Houston, have imposed the death penalty more than any other county in the US 
since its reinstatement in 1976.

The Fair Punishment Project also notes that the number of death sentences 
handed down in Harris County has fallen to 10 since 2010, from 53 between 1998 
and 2003.

Harris County was named 1 of 16 "outlier" counties in the US, where 5 or more 
death sentences were assessed in between 2010 and 2015. In the 8 counties 
examined by the study, 41% of the death sentences were given to black 
defendants and 69% to minorities overall. In Harris County, all defendants 
condemned since 2004 were from racial minority groups.

"When you look at what the death penalty actually looks like on the ground in 
Harris County, you see things that should disturb you," Rob Smith, one of the 
researchers on the project, told the Houston Chronicle.

"There's a pattern of overzealous prosecution that dates back for decades but 
is still present in the time period for the study, and is matched by 
under-zealous [defense] representation in cases."

Harris County district attorney Devon Anderson said her office was judicious in 
its use of the death penalty.

"When we seek death, it's because we have a solid guilt/innocence case and a 
very strong punishment case," she said. "The death penalty is only appropriate 
for the worst of the worst."

Anderson said she did not know the race of a defendant or victim whenever she 
and 4 top staff members met to discuss whether to seek the death penalty.

"I think it's very important that it be 'blind' in that regard," she said.

Juries across the country are proving to be increasingly reluctant to sentence 
defendants to death, the Harvard report said, choosing instead the option of 
life imprisonment without parole.

The last Harris County trial in which prosecutors sought the death penalty 
ended in November: 28-year-old Johnathan Sanchez was given life without parole. 
The last Harris County jury to assess a death sentence did so in 2014, when 
Harlem Lewis was sent to death row for the killings of Bellaire police officer 
Jimmie Norman and "good samaritan" Terry Taylor.

The Harris County district attorney's office is currently seeking the death 
penalty in 2 cases. Ronald Haskell, who is white, is accused of killing 2 
adults and 4 children from his ex-wife's family in spring 2014. David Ray 
Conley, who is black, is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend, her husband and 
6 children, including his son, last year.

(source: The Guardian)

*****************

Study: Harris County death penalty cases plagued by bias


A Harvard Law School study reports that racial bias, over-aggressive 
prosecutions and poor representation for indigent defendants plagues the 
handling of death-penalty cases in the Southeast Texas county where Houston is 
situated.

The report by the school's Fair Punishment Project names Harris County as one 
of 16 "outlier" U.S. counties where 5 or more death sentences were assessed in 
2010-15.

Harris County juries have imposed death penalties on more defendants than in 
any other county since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. The number 
of death sentences has fallen from 53 in 1998 through 2003 to 10 since 2010. 
However, all condemned since 2004 are from minorities.

Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson told the Houston Chronicle 
(http://bit.ly/2brIHX6) her office is judicious in its use of the death 
penalty.

(source: Associated Press)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Death Penalty Sought in Cookout Ambush That Killed 5, Unborn Child


Prosecutors in Pennsylvania say they plan to seek the death penalty against 2 
men charged in an ambush at a cookout that killed 5 adults and an unborn child.

The Allegheny County district attorneys' office filed notice Friday that it 
would seek capital punishment if Cheron Shelton, 29, and Robert Thomas, 27, are 
convicted of 1st-degree murder.

Prosecutors said the death penalty would be warranted because of the 
defendants' previous convictions, the multiple felonies alleged and the grave 
risk posed to others.

Defense attorneys say the men are innocent. Shelton's lawyer, Randall McKinney, 
called the decision to seek capital punishment "disheartening," but said it 
didn't shake his belief that his client's name will be cleared at trial.

The men are each charged with 6 counts of criminal homicide in the March 9 
cookout in Wilkinsburg, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Prosecutors suspect a man 
wounded at the cookout had killed Shelton's best friend in 2013, and they are 
looking for that man.

Prosecutors allege Thomas fired 18 shots from a .40-caliber pistol into a group 
of about 15 partygoers, prompting them to run toward a rear porch where 
authorities say Shelton was hiding behind a fence. Prosecutors allege Shelton 
peppered the fleeing crowd from 5-feet away with 30 shots from a rifle similar 
to an AK-47.

Brittany Powell, 27, who was renting the home, was killed as were her siblings 
Chanetta Powell, 25, and Jerry Shelton, 35. The county medical examiner ruled 
Chanetta Powell's unborn son died because of her death. The siblings' cousin, 
Tina Shelton, 37, and their friend, Shada Mahone, 26, also died in the attack.

The 2 men also face charges of criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault and 
reckless endangerment. Authorities say bullets pierced the walls of the 
residence, wounding 3 other people. 3 children were in the house at the time 
but unharmed.

(source: Associated Press)






GEORGIA:

30 years later, attorneys still argue over Stocking Stranglings -- Journalist 
and author Billy Winn, the former editorial page editor at The Ledger-Enquirer, 
shares his thoughts on Carlton Gary and the "Stocking Stanglings."


30 years after a jury convicted and sentenced Carlton Gary to death in 3 of 
Columbus' 7 heinous "Stocking Stranglings" of 1977-78, attorneys still argue 
over evidence in the case.

The latest piece in contention is a sketch artist's rendering from a rape 
survivor who was under hypnosis as she described the man who attacked her.

Today, as Gary seeks a new trial or sentencing in the gruesome rapes and 
stranglings that terrorized the city from September 1977 to April 1978, that 
sketch is swept up in an intense battle over which elements of a massive case 
file should be subject to further review.

As so often has happened before in the saga of a career criminal who grew up in 
Columbus before prowling other places to steal, rob, rape and kill, just when 
the end appears near, the tale takes another turn.

Late last year the defense and prosecution filed what they thought would be 
their final arguments on Gary's motion for a new trial: The prosecution filed 
Nov. 6; the defense Dec. 11. All that was left was to wait for Superior Court 
Judge Frank Jordan Jr. to issue a ruling.

Then the briefcase turned up.

The briefcase belonged to Don Miller, a sheriff's investigator who died in 
1983, a year before authorities finally tracked Gary down. Miller's son-in-law, 
Doug Grubbs, found it in the attic, saw Stocking Strangler files in it, and 
turned it over to the sheriff's office Jan. 11. Attorneys inspected it Feb. 3.

What ensued was a heated exchange over whether Gary's defense had ever seen the 
files. By August, both sides agreed that it had - 20 years ago, during Gary's 
early appeals in the 1990s.

Gary's lead defense lawyer, Atlanta attorney John Martin, finally decided just 
1 document from the briefcase should be added to the evidence Jordan is to 
consider: the sketch.

Prelude to terror

On Sept. 11, 1977, a friend coming to take 64-year-old Gertrude Miller to 
church found the home daycare owner had been brutally beaten with a board and 
raped in her 2703 Hood St. home. The assailant, who climbed in through her 
bedroom window, had left behind 3 stockings he took from her dresser and 
knotted.

Authorities later decided Miller was the 1st victim of the "Stocking 
Strangler," so called because he so often used stockings to strangle women to 
death. The ritual serial killer also left his victims' bodies covered.

He proved to be an ingenious burglar, who patiently took doors off their hinges 
and once disassembled a deadbolt lock improperly installed. In one break-in he 
removed burglar bars from a window and set them aside.

In the wake of Miller's assault, police soon saw the horrors to come as 4 women 
ages 59 through 89 brutally were beaten, raped and strangled from Sept. 16 
through Oct. 25, 1977, with more to follow.

Desperately seeking a suspect, detectives on Oct. 29, 1977, brought a hypnotist 
to see Gertrude Miller, who under his spell described the intruder she saw when 
he turned on a bedroom lamp.

Detectives took the sketch, dated Oct. 31, 1977, and filed it away. Though 
Gary's defense attorney questioned Miller about it at the 1986 trial, when she 
identified Gary as her assailant, the sketch was never shown to the jury. It 
faded into the voluminous data that now constitutes the Stocking Strangler case 
file - until the briefcase turned up.

Now Martin wants it in evidence for Gary's new trial motion. "This suspect 
looks nothing like the defendant," he wrote Aug. 9. He has asked Jordan to hold 
a hearing on it.

"Everything's on hold until the judge rules on this composite," Martin said 
last week.

Should Jordan hold a hearing on the sketch, it further may delay an aging 
criminal case so often extended before.

District Attorney Julia Slater argued that the depiction is irrelevant. Miller 
herself said it didn't look like the man who raped her, and even if the sketch 
wasn't displayed during Gary's trial, the defense knew it existed and 
questioned her about it on cross-examination.

Besides that, Gary wasn't convicted of assaulting Miller, Slater noted. Like 
other attacks on older women in which Gary was implicated but not charged - 
including 4 of the 7 stranglings - the Miller case was used at his trial as a 
"similar transaction," evidence of Gary's pattern of criminal conduct.

Martin has countered that because then-District Attorney Bill Smith maintained 
in 1986 that Gary alone committed all of the assaults and stranglings, any 
evidence clearing him in one case casts doubt on the others.

Casting doubt on Gary's guilt has become a crusade for his supporters and 
others opposed to the death penalty.

Last chance

Today Gary is 65 years old, no longer the sleek, fashionable defendant who went 
on trial back in the 20th century. He remains on death row in the Georgia 
Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, waiting to see if Martin's 
last-ditch effort can gain him another chance.

"My sense is that this is Carlton's last chance," said British writer David 
Rose, author of the 2007 book "The Big Eddy Club," which championed Gary as the 
victim of a racist judicial system that withheld exculpatory evidence to ensure 
his conviction.

Rose signed on as an investigator for Gary's defense team to research the book 
and today maintains contact with those involved.

"My views on the case have never changed," he said during a recent telephone 
interview.

Asked about Gary's well-being, Rose said: "He's not doing too good physically, 
and not very happy." An attempted escape at the prison about 10 years ago 
prompted administrators to clamp down on the time inmates get outside their 
cells, he said.

Rose said Martin's December motion is Gary's best shot at escaping lethal 
injection, a fate he already dodged once before.

"It's one of the strongest legal motions I've ever seen," the author said.

And the sketch would only bolster it, said Martin: "I thought we had a 
compelling case already. This was just gravy."

Dodging the needle

The last time Gary narrowly escaped death was Dec. 16, 2009, when the Georgia 
Supreme Court issued a last-minute stay of his execution, sending the case back 
to Muscogee Superior Court to consider DNA-testing suitable evidence.

After reviewing the evidence, prosecutors and defense attorneys on Feb. 19, 
2010, agreed to test 4 items from 3 of the 7 stranglings for DNA. The hope was 
that this would settle Gary's guilt or innocence once and for all.

Instead it caused more confusion:

On Dec. 14, 2010, attorneys said the initial DNA test results matched Gary to 
the Sept. 24, 1977, rape and strangling of Jean Dimenstein, but not the Oct. 
25, 1977, murder of Martha Thurmond. The defense then sought testing on clothes 
police collected from Gertrude Miller the morning after she was raped and 
beaten.

On March 6, 2012, attorneys said tests of the Miller evidence yielded a DNA 
profile that did not match Gary.

On Nov. 21, 2013, Slater announced the Thurmond DNA test was tainted at the 
state crime lab and thus invalid. The flawed test used up the crime scene 
sample police had collected.

The defense was aghast: The Thurmond evidence had been the most promising, more 
likely than any of the rest to yield a clean DNA profile.

The error had a secondary effect: If the GBI fouled the Thurmond evidence, who 
could say the Dimenstein test was accurate? Perhaps it also was tainted.

The forensic evidence has become a muddle that fogs the pattern of Gary's life 
of crime, much of which Smith laid out during the 1986 trial.

30 years ago, the evidence against Gary was not as much forensic as 
circumstantial: matters of place and time that if coincidental, were remarkably 
so:

Wherever Gary went, older women were raped and strangled.

The timeline

Born Sept. 24, 1950, in Columbus, Gary at age 16 moved with his mother to Fort 
Myers and later Gainesville, Fla., before heading to New York, where the trail 
of assaults attributed to him began:

-- On April 14, 1970, Nellie Farmer, 85, was found raped and strangled and her 
body left covered in her home in the Wellington Hotel in Albany, N.Y. Police 
found Gary's fingerprint at the scene. Gary claimed another man killed Farmer 
and was convicted only of robbery. He was released from prison March 31, 1975, 
and moved to Syracuse, NY.

-- On June 27, 1975, Marion Fisher, 40, was found raped and strangled on a 
road just outside Syracuse. Investigators in 2007 said they matched Gary's DNA 
to the cold-case evidence. Unknown to local authorities at the time of Gary's 
1986 trial, this is not in evidence here.

-- On Jan. 2, 1977, Jean Frost, 55, was raped and nearly choked to death in 
her home in Syracuse. Gary had a watch taken from Frost's home when police 
arrested him 2 days later. Again he blamed another man for the assault. He was 
charged with perjury, assault and possessing stolen property. He escaped from 
prison Aug. 23, 1977, and came home to Columbus to live at 1027 Fisk Ave.

-- On Sept. 11, 1977, Gertrude Miller was raped and beaten. Gary lived about 2 
blocks away.

-- On Sept. 16, 1977, Mary Willis "Fern" Jackson, 59, of 2505 17th St., was 
found brutally beaten, raped and strangled with a stocking and sash. Her body 
was left covered. Her stolen car was later found on Benner Avenue near Fisk 
Avenue.

-- On Sept. 24, 1977, Jean Dimenstein, 71, was found raped and strangled with 
a stocking in her home that then had the address 3027 21st St. (the street has 
since been renamed). Her body was left covered with sheets and a pillow.

-- On Oct. 21, 1977, Florence Scheible, 89, was found raped and strangled with 
a stocking in her 1941 Dimon St. home, which today has a different address. Her 
body was left covered. Gary's right thumbprint was found on a door frame 
leading into Scheible's bedroom.

-- On Oct. 25, 1977, Martha Thurmond, 70, was found raped and strangled with a 
stocking in her 2614 Marion St. home. Her body was covered by a pillow, 
blankets and sheets. Gary's fingerprint was found on the frame of a rear 
bedroom window.

-- On Dec. 28, 1977, Kathleen Woodruff, 74, was found raped and strangled in 
her 1811 Buena Vista Road home, which later was demolished during an Aflac 
expansion. Gary's fingerprint was found on the aluminum window screen where the 
intruder entered, and his palm print on the windowsill inside.

-- On Feb. 11, 1978, Ruth Schwob, 74, of 1800 Carter Ave., was nearly 
strangled to death by an intruder she fought off, pressing a panic alarm by her 
bed. Police found her sitting on the edge of her bed, gasping, a stocking 
wrapped around her neck.

-- On Feb. 12, 1978, Mildred Borom, 78, 1612 Forest Ave., about 2 blocks from 
Schwob's home, was found raped and strangled with a cord cut from window 
blinds. Her body was covered with a dress.

-- On April 20, 1978, Janet Cofer, 61, of 3783 Steam Mill Road, was found 
raped and strangled with a stocking. A pillow covered her face.

After that, the stranglings abruptly ended. Police said Gary switched to 
robbing restaurants and moved to Greenville, S.C., where that fall he earned 
the nickname "Steakhouse Bandit." He went to jail for armed robbery Feb. 22, 
1979.

He escaped March 15, 1984, and returned to Georgia, where authorities arrested 
him in Albany the following May 3.

On Aug. 26, 1986, a jury found him guilty of killing Scheible, Thurmond and 
Woodruff. The next day jurors sentenced him to death.

What happens next?

Investigators collected some evidence that doesn't fit Gary, his defense team 
argues. A shoeprint at the Farmer crime scene was too small for Gary's size 13 
1/2 feet. So was a shoeprint on the air-conditioning unit the intruder stood 
upon to climb into Schwob's window.

Blood evidence prosecutors used to tie Gary to the murders actually excluded 
him as the strangler, his attorneys said. And though police claimed to have 
found his fingerprints, they did not photograph those prints to pinpoint their 
location, and they had no objective standard for establishing a match.

A mold made from a bite mark found on Cofer's breast doesn't match Gary's 
teeth, the defense said. Though Gary had dental work in prison, the work was on 
his upper teeth, not his lower. The mold shows the killer had a lower, rotated 
tooth Gary doesn't have.

The bite-mark mold wasn't shown to the jury during Gary's trial. It turned up 
in 2005, bolstering defense claims that prosecutors withheld crucial evidence 
back in 1986.

District Attorney Julia Slater declined to be interviewed for this story, but 
she offered a written statement:

"The state remains confident in the validity of the convictions and sentences 
returned by the jury against Carlton Gary in 1986. Post-conviction DNA results 
have established that Carlton Gary's DNA was found in the vaginal washing of 
Jean Dimenstein and no new evidence has been discovered that would raise any 
doubt about the jury's decision. The case has been back with the Superior Court 
of Muscogee County for 6 1/2 years and the extraordinary motion for new trial 
has been pending for four years. The state will continue to work tirelessly to 
ensure that the jury's verdict is upheld and the sentence carried out."

Asked whether he ever expected Gary's appeals to go on this long, his defense 
attorney said: "I always thought this case would go on forever."

Regardless of Jordan's ruling on the new trial motion, it will be appealed to 
the Georgia Supreme Court. The end is not in sight.

Billy Winn, a former Ledger-Enquirer editorial-page editor who covered Gary's 
trial and spent 10 years researching the case, is among those who believe Gary 
is guilty.

"He probably killed more often than we know," Winn said last week. But he's not 
surprised Gary has persuaded others he's innocent. "Nothing in this case 
surprises me anymore," he said.

"What he was, was a polished con man," Winn said. "He could confound anybody. 
If he hadn't been a killer, he could have been the greatest salesman on earth."

Though Winn found David Rose's book outrageous and infuriating, the 2 writers 
have something in common: Neither believes in the death penalty.

What should happen?

Said Winn: "I would just like to see Carlton go away, by however that may be."

(source: Ledger-Enquirer)






MISSISSIPPI:

Man charged with capital murder in Miss. nun slayings


A Kosciusko, Miss. man has been charged with 2 counts of capital murder in the 
deaths of 2 nuns in Holmes County.

Authorities said late Friday night that Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, was developed 
as a suspect after "an exhaustive interview Friday evening."

Sanders is charged in the deaths of Sister Paula Merrill, a nurse practitioner 
with the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky, and Sister Margaret Held, 
a nurse practitioner with the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee. They 
were found dead Thursday in their home on Castalian Springs Road in Durant, a 
town of roughly 2,600.

The two women were stabbed, coroner Dexter Howard said, but a cause of death 
won't be determined until the autopsies are complete.

Howard called the crime scene "one of the worst" he's ever seen.

During the course of the interview, agents with the Mississippi Bureau of 
Investigation obtained enough information to charge Sanders.

MBI Director Lt. Col. Jimmy Jordan said Sanders was a person of interest early 
in the investigation. Authorities have not released information on how he was 
implicated or what his connection to Merrill and Held might have been.

"With the cooperation of the Durant and Kosciusko police departments, Holmes 
County Sheriff's Department and the (state) Attorney General Office this 
heinous crime has been resolved," read a statement from Jordan.

Sanders is being held in an undisclosed detention center awaiting his initial 
court appearance.

MBI Spokesman Warren Strain said further details won't be released yet because 
there is still evidence being processed by the crime lab.

"Right now there's really still a long way to go," Strain said. "We're holding 
off on saying anything else tonight. We just wanted everyone to know that he's 
off the street."

(source: Clarion-Ledger)

*************************

Executions warranted for some crimes


I've lost count along the way of the number of executions I have witnessed over 
the years here in Mississippi.

I think the number is 8 to 10 executions, where I actually stood inside a small 
room looking through a large window as a death row inmate was put to death. I 
covered other executions at Parchman where I didn't witness the execution, but 
was there writing about them.

I remember going to the state Penitentiary at Parchman in 1983 for the 
execution of Jimmy Lee Gray, who was put to death in the gas chamber. I didn't 
actual witness Gray's execution, but I was part of the team that went up there 
to cover the execution.

Gray was the 1st Mississippi death row inmate executed in 19 years when he was 
put to death for the rape and murder of a 3-year-old Pascagoula girl. In those 
days, executions were carried out after midnight.

After Gray's execution, Mississippi conducted 3 other gas chamber executions in 
the 1980s.

There were no executions in the 1990s. The next execution was in 2002 when 
Tracy Alan Hansen became the 1st inmate to die by lethal injection in 
Mississippi. They became a lot more regular starting with Hansen's execution.

However, there hasn't been an execution in the state in several years now. I 
thought about my experiences with executions last week when Dean Parker and his 
brother Scott Parker came to the state Capitol to register their displeasure 
with the possibility of 1 of the 2 men sentenced to death for the 1990 killing 
of their father Carl Parker, his wife, Bobbie Jo, the couple's 12-year-old son 
and 9-year-old daughter.

The Quitman County family was killed in their home after returning from church 
to find 2 men burglarizing their home.

The girl was raped. Her father's finger was chopped off to steal his wedding 
ring. After shooting the victims, the killers set the house on fire, leaving 
the bodies to burn.

Now, 26 years later, the 2 men sentenced to death for the gruesome crime - 
Anthony Carr and Robert Simon Jr. - are still alive and 1 could possibly get 
off death row. .

Earlier this month, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed a lower court's 
decision that Carr is not mentally disabled and can be executed. The state high 
court sent the case back to the lower court.

An attorney for Carr in May had appealed to the state high court based on 2002 
U.S. Supreme Court Ruling that states cannot execute mentally disabled people. 
During Carr's appeal in 2013, 2 psychologists disagreed about whether Carr was 
competent, and a Quitman County circuit judge said it was "too close to call" 
and upheld his execution.

Tears streamed down the face of Scott Parker at the state Capitol when he 
talked about how it made him feel that Carr could possibly get off death row.

I could feel Scott Parker's pain. Once in my life, I was firmly opposed to the 
death penalty, but over the years, I have modified my views or my views have 
been modified because of the nature of some crimes. I now believe the death 
penalty is appropriate in some cases.

What is hard to take in the Quitman County case is that 26 years after the 
horrific crime, the family members of the victims don't have the justice they 
seek.

(source: Jimmie E. Gates, Clarion-Ledger)






TENNESSEE:

The conservative case against the death penalty


Though support for the death penalty is at a 40-year low, a slim majority still 
supports the practice. However, a growing number of conservatives are 
recognizing that the death penalty is a government program that doesn't work 
and contradicts the pillars of the Republican Party: limited government, fiscal 
responsibility, and pro-life policies. These same guiding principles are moving 
conservatives to support alternatives.

I recognize the emotional appeal of the death penalty: Evil demands a strong 
response, and murder should be followed with swift and sure justice. 
Unfortunately, the death penalty system is never swift in executing death 
warrants, but is always costly and occasionally misguided. For these reasons, 
conservative legislators around the country are seeking to replace the death 
penalty with life without parole. For a number of these lawmakers, their 
growing opposition to the death penalty is not based on moral qualms with 
executions but is rooted in their belief that the death penalty system is a 
bloated, broken government program that does not make citizens safer or provide 
legal finality to victims.

If, as conservatives, we believe the government is often inept in running 
programs, how can we have confidence that this same government can rightly 
decide who lives and who dies?

Recognizing the error-prone nature of government has led many leaders to seek 
tough on crime sentences that do not have the same irreversible consequences. 
With a conservative majority, Nebraska repealed its death penalty last year. 
Utah came just a few votes short of repealing the death penalty this year. And 
Montana's House of Representatives also carried a bipartisan bill to repeal the 
death penalty that came 1 vote short in 2015. In 2016, 6 states considered 
repeal bills sponsored by Republicans.

Tennessee conservatives also recognize the problems, particularly the risk of 
executing the innocent. During the 2016 legislative session, East Tennessean 
Ray Krone testified in front of the House Criminal Justice and Senate Judiciary 
committees about this risk. Krone spent 10 years in prison (3 on death row) in 
Arizona before DNA evidence exonerated him and identified the real perpetrator. 
Krone reminded committee members that no matter how many safeguards are 
created, we can never ensure that our state will not execute an innocent 
person, especially since DNA evidence is only available in roughly 10 % of 
homicide cases.

Still, while innocence is a concern, we know horrible crimes happen, and 
victims and their family members should receive justice. But tough-on-crime 
policies should also be smart on crime - policies that make us safer, provide 
legal finality and save taxpayer dollars. Not one of these goals is 
accomplished by the death penalty system.

State cost studies, including North Carolina and Maryland, show the cost per 
execution to be at least $2 million more than life without parole. Similarly, a 
2004 Tennessee report concluded that capital murder trials alone cost 48 % more 
than trials that seek life without parole. With this high cost, we still fail 
to see outcomes, with only 6 executions in Tennessee since 1960.

At its peak, the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville held 150 
death row inmates; today, there are only 57. A number of death row inmates have 
had their sentences overturned, and at least four were wrongfully convicted and 
released. The leading cause of death on Tennessee's death row is not 
pentobarbital or the electric chair, but natural causes, with the average of 28 
years spent on death row before execution, if the execution ever occurs.

The death penalty system creates a dilemma - how to bring swift and sure 
justice to victims' families while also ensuring an innocent person is not 
executed, and to do so in a cost-effective way. With such a flawed system, 
striking this balance is not possible, and based on our principles, Tennessee 
conservatives should call for our state to move away from the death penalty.

(source: Opinion; Amy Lawrence, a Tennessee conservative who has worked on 
numerous Republican campaigns, is the coordinator for Tennessee Conservatives 
Concerned About the Death Penalty (www.tnconservativesconcerned.org) 
----Knoxville News Sentinel)