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article is written by the author itself and not by me, I am not trying to
violate their copyright. I will give some information on them.
PAGE TITLE: The Concord Monitor
ARTICLE TITLE: Support for death penalty is strong
AUTHOR: James M. Reams
AUTHOR
INFORMATION: James M. Reams became the county attorney in
Rockingham County, New Hampshire, in 1998. He heads an office of 19 attorneys
who prosecute felonies and who serve as counsel in three district courts in
Rockingham County. He has oversight responsibility for the police departments
in 37 towns. Reams describes his jurisdiction as “wealthy and rural, but moving
toward suburban.” With a population of approximately 300,000, it is one of the
fastest growing counties in the nation.
DATE: Thursday 6 January
2011
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| James M. Reams |
As
a member of the majority of the Commission to Study the Death Penalty in New
Hampshire, I would like to rebut the information provided by Barbara Keshen in
her Dec. 31 Monitor column, "On death penalty, state bucks the
trend."
The
anti-death penalty coalition asserts time and time again that public support
for the death penalty in America and the world is declining. In fact, there is
no indication that public support is waning. When faced with an actual
execution, the public has overwhelmingly supported the application of the death
penalty. The proof? Public opinion polls following the execution of Timothy
McVeigh for blowing up more than 160 men, women and children in a terrorist act
in Oklahoma showed an over 80 percent approval rating for the execution.
Further proof? If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the
attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 was to be executed, the approval
ratings for that execution would be at least as high as the McVeigh figures.
As
noted in the American Law Institute's "Report of the Council to the
Membership of the American Law Institute on the Matter of the Death
Penalty," dated April 15, 2009, "Popular political support for the
death penalty appears to remain relatively high, with opinion polls reporting
stable majorities (about 70 percent)."
And
in a recent report published by the Council for European Studies at Columbia
University, Andrew Moravcsik writes that 65 to 70 percent of Britons, a
majority of Austrians, around 50 percent of Italians and 49 percent of Swedes
favor its reinstatement. The death penalty retains popular approval in Europe
when polling is done, as it does in Japan, India and other non-western
democracies.
Complicated math
The
anti-death penalty lobby also asserts that the death penalty is too expensive
to administer. The figures presented to the commission by the Judicial Council,
the attorney general's office and the courts were valid attempts to comply with
commission requests but were hampered by complications that undermined an
accurate understanding of the costs of the recent capital murder trials and the
expected costs of substituting life-without-parole sentences for the death
penalty in cases of capital murder.
For
example, the attorney general's office is challenged when providing figures
about the costs of litigating the two recent death penalty cases. In the Brooks
case, the defendant was a retired multi-millionaire with virtually unlimited
resources to pour into his defense. It was also complicated by the fact that
multiple trips had to be made to Las Vegas, the defendant's home, to interview,
depose and prepare witness for both the guilt phase and the penalty phase of
the trial.
In
State v. Addison, the attorney general's office assisted the Hillsborough
County attorney in the preparation and trial of the underlying armed robberies
cases, which became factors in the death penalty case. In a bid to be entirely
transparent and complete, the attorney general included all costs associated
with Addison case. Thus, the Addison figures overstate the actual costs of the
death penalty trial.
The
costs of incarceration for life in prison are equally challenged because of the
limited information available. The Department of Corrections indicated the
average length of incarceration of an inmate serving a life without parole
sentence is 16.4 years. If the costs of incarceration of inmates are averaged
across the system, the cost comes to approximately $33,100 per year. The costs
associated with housing inmates in the Secured Housing Unit, where Michael
Addison is housed, are higher because of the nature of confinement and the
increased security in that unit.
Skewed formula
Additionally,
when talking about costs, the Department of Corrections uses an average cost of
housing an inmate in New Hampshire prisons, which takes the total costs of the
system and divides those costs by the number of inmates. This method skews the
actual costs of life sentences downward. Clearly, it is more expensive to house
an inmate sentenced to life without parole than an inmate serving three to six
years, the average sentence in the state prison.
It
is axiomatic that the prisoners who are serving life without parole have much
higher total costs, such as medical costs associated with geriatric care,
medical care for chronic health issues and end-of-life care. It is well
documented that most Americans spend most of their lifetime health-care dollars
during their end-of-life phase. There is no reason to doubt that the lifetime
costs of average life-without-parole sentences will be higher than average
costs of persons serving shorter sentences.
Since
there is little data about the real cost of a life-without-parole sentence, the
commission reached only general conclusions based upon general facts about
end-of-life issues. Faced with lower that actual incarceration costs and higher
than average prosecution costs, the commission settled for the proposition that
while the cost of death penalty prosecutions is higher, no realistic precise
figures could be ascertained.
(Jim
Reams is the Rockingham County attorney.)
Commission
member and Rockingham County Attorney Jim Reams told the Concord Monitor that a
reason to retain the death penalty is the limitation of the law.
He
described New Hampshire's statutes as "much more protective" than
those in other death penalty states.
Reams
also said he believes the death penalty has a deterrent effect, referring to a
story the commission heard from Peter Heed, the Cheshire County attorney.
According to Reams, Heed told the commission that when he was a criminal
defense lawyer, a client said he didn't kill a police officer because he knew
he could face the death penalty.
"There's a police officer probably alive today who doesn't even
know he was saved by the fact that we had a death penalty," Reams said.
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