Ask The Lawyer – Live and Let Die

There are eighteen states that have abolished the death penalty.  Since 2007, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois and Connecticut have all decided to no longer impose capital punishment. Previously, no state had abolished capital punishment since 1984.

Maryland recently decided that it was too expensive to try death penalty cases.  Maryland concluded that the drawn-out execution process was more expensive than the cost to support a prison inmate for life. A 2008 Urban Institute study determined that it costs $1.1 million to prosecute a death penalty-eligible case in which execution is not sought. It cost $3 million to prosecute a case that resulted in the death penalty.

In Florida,  the State Legislature has taken a different attitude about death penalty cases. A new law was passed requiring the Governor to sign execution warrants 30 days after the State Supreme Court reviewed the case. It  also requires the State to conduct the execution within 180 days of the warrant being signed. This is designed to save Florida dollars. It costs taxpayers much more to house prisoners on death row than it does to place them in the general population.

In Alabama, the law does not require the death penalty for all murderers. There are 18 aggravating factors in Alabama that can trigger the death penalty.  One of the factors is when the victim is under the age of fourteen. Murder during the commission of other crimes such as arson, kidnapping, rape, burglary, sodomy, sexual abuse, and robbery can qualify as a death penalty case.  Murdering more than one person can be a death case as is murdering someone for money or insurance.

The death penalty may be triggered by the type of person killed. Murder of any police office, sheriff, deputy, state trooper, federal law enforcement officer, or any state or federal peace officer of any kind can be capital murder. A murder of a state or federal public official may become capital.

Where the murder took place may make it capital. For example, shooting into a home and killing them can be capital.  However, shooting the same person outside of the home is not a capital case. A defendant who murders a person who is inside a vehicle may be tried for capital murder. The same crime committed outside the vehicle is not capital.

There are 193 inmates on death row in Alabama. Four of them are women. You can read information about all of Alabama death row inmates at the state web site http://www.doc.state.al.us/deathrow.asp .

State Senator Hank Sanders, a Selma Democrat, introduced legislation this year to abolish the death penalty in Alabama. The bill is not expected to be voted on this term.  There is a movement to do away with the death penalty across the nation.  Use of the death penalty is in decline nationwide. Eighty-five people were executed in 2000, while just 43 executions were carried out in 2012.

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