The Cost of Justice?

There is an article on CNN today talking about how several states are trying to push through legislation to end the death penalty in their states. I know this is the kind of thing that happens all the time as many people are very opposed to the death penalty. The difference this time is the reasoning. Its not for moral reasons. Its simply about money. The states are broke and they are saying it costs considerably more to pursue cases where the death penalty is involved than it does in a normal trial. The article is HERE if you are interested.

The article cites states that are claiming it costs anywhere from 500K to almost 2 million dollars more to prosecute a death penalty case. These costs stem from: "Extra safeguards in place to ensure a fair verdict, including additional investigators and defense attorneys certified to handle death cases, who spend more time researching and litigating the case, also drive up costs."

This article bothers me in several ways. First off, what kind of message does this send to criminals out there? We'll pursue justice.. as long as it fits in the budget? Just hire a lawyer that knows how to tie things up and drive up the costs so that the state can't afford to prosecute you? How does this play in to the costs of keeping the person incarcerated? I just did a quick search on the cost of incarceration and an article about the costs for 2008 in California were quite shocking. They budgeted 50K per year for each inmate in a prison. That adds up fast when you are talking about life sentences and people that are being sentenced to those terms at a young age.

What about the families of those victims? If someone decides to rape and murder 5 people, is it not worth the extra time and money and effort to make sure this person is convicted properly? I would rather see an extra 500K go into the trial and execution of someone like that than to pay to keep him in prison for the rest of his life.

What really scares me though is the way the article says that it costs more on the death penalty cases because of the extra time and effort it takes "to ensure a fair verdict". Umm.. shouldn't we be doing this anyway? Even if you take the death penalty out of the picture, putting someone behind bars for a decade is something you should be sure of. So you didn't kill him or her, but isn't taking them away from their family, their life, and putting them in prison for a long time worth "being sure" on? They are alive, but if they spend their entire adult lives in prison you have still taken away the life that they knew and would come to know.

I know its not a perfect system. I just find it scary that budgets may end up deciding how far we go to pursue justice. I suppose thats always the case though. People who can afford high priced attorneys are going to fair better than the guy who has no money and is relying on whatever overloaded public defender that gets his case. Just because that is the way it is, doesn't mean I have to like the situation.

My idea? Legalize pot. Tax the hell out of it. Save all the money spent fighting and prosecuting the marajuana 'problem' in the US and use that to help support the judicial system. Give them the funds they need to run the cases properly. To 'ensure a fair verdict' every time, not just when the death penalty is involved.