New Mexico Victims sign-on 2009

When it comes to human life, a system that gets it right most of the time should not exist at all.

Despite the tremendous resources required by capital prosecutions, mistakes are all to common; it is a fundamentally flawed process which dis-serves all involved.

And in my view, you have a better chance at a good system of criminal justice if you don't spend all these million and millions of dollars on the 2% of cases that are death cases and ignore the 98% that are non-death cases.

From my personal experience struggling for good mental health care for my son, I believe family survivors of murder victims would be much better served if the resources wasted on the death penalty were used to provide quality mental health care for the victims and survivors of violence.

As the warden of San Quentin, I presided over four executions. After each one, someone on the staff would ask, ‘Is the world safer because of what we did tonight?' We knew the answer: No.

Two juries were wrong. Two judges were wrong. The state of Maryland was wrong... I am not here because the system worked. I am here because a series of miracles happened.

I would like to state right here and now, when a mistake is made it's hard to undo. The criminal justice system does not have very good remedies for errors... It was a hell of a lot of people that took to unbuild a simple mistake that occurred in the local precinct when my son was first arrested.

I know the rage and sense of justice that lead people to support the death penalty. I also know from working with murder victim family members for the past four years that what victims' families need is help to heal and learn how to live with a mangled heart. They need support and counseling. We need the killer to be caught and brought to justice. We do not need an execution.

In the last quarter-century, more than 100 men sitting on death row have been released because of reviews that have found them innocent.

The death penalty won't bring my brother back or help to apprehend his murderer. We need to start investing in programs that will actually improve public safety and get more killers off the streets.

We cannot rely on the system to catch the errors, nor can we rely on the overburdened, not-for-profit organizations to save the ones that are innocent and in prison… Abolishing the death penalty will not ensure no innocent person will be convicted, but it would ensure that no innocent person will be killed by the state.

It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive...It's a waste of time and money...The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families.

A new set of victims is created among the family members of the condemned who watch. I wondered most about the mothers who saw their sons being put to death. Some would just wail out crying. It’s a sound you’ll never hear any place else, an awful sound that sticks with you.

When even the most capable and hard-working attorneys lack adequate resources to do their job, there is an increased risk that innocent people will be incarcerated, guilty people may never be prosecuted, and other defendants will receive unfairly excessive sentences.

Given the irreversibility of the death penalty, the possibility of a wrongful conviction can never be overstated

And some people say the system worked because I got out. The system didn't work because I got out. I'm just going to tell you how I got out. I exhausted all my appeals to get out, which means the next step, if the death penalty was in effect, I would have been killed.

[The death penalty] consumes huge sums of money that could be used for direct victims' services, such as counseling, funeral expenses, and educational help for the children left behind.

I think the time has come to decide whether it's worth the cost.

I think law enforcement thinks [the death penalty is] a joke and that's probably why 1 percent thinks it's effective. It takes too long and there's too many people on death row that never get put to death.

The death penalty divides families at a time when they need each other most. Instead of finding comfort with one another, we find ourselves handcuffed to the criminal justice system, stuck in a process that keeps replaying the worst time of our lives while providing us almost nothing in the way of real support or healing.

I have come to think of it [the death penalty] as a ridiculous institution...You can't design a system where you can ensure that an innocent person is not executed.

For years I supported capital punishment, but I have come to believe that our criminal justice system is incapable of adequately distinguishing between the innocent and guilty. It is reprehensible and immoral to gamble with life and death.

The best available evidence indicates that, on the one hand, innocent people are sentenced to death with materially greater frequency than was previously supposed and that, on the other hand, convincing proof of their innocence often does not emerge until long after their convictions.

Conservatives, especially, should draw this lesson... Capital punishment, like the rest of the criminal justice system, is a government program, so skepticism is in order.

It is a hoax on the families of murder victims, on the public at large and on myself as a prosecutor in this state. It is a punishment that does not deliver the justice it promises, prolongs the suffering of those who have lost a loved one and does nothing to actually enhance public safety.

The first time I voted for the death penalty, I thought of the law as majestic and that there was very little chance of a mistake…Then you grow up. Look at the DNA evidence – you realize that people can make terrible mistakes.

While well-intentioned people defend capital punishment "for the victims," surviving family members are left to grieve in silence, without access to ongoing services, peer support, or affordable, specialized counseling. Grassroots organizations around the country have sprung up to meet this need, but most of us struggle on a daily basis to remain in existence.

It's not about crime prevention or crime deterrence or saving money. [With executions] we're creating a lot of other residual victims.

But these days, there's also a strong economic argument for doing away with capital punishment. With California facing its most severe fiscal crisis in recent memory... it would be crazy not to consider the fact that it will add as much as $1 billion over the next five years simply to keep the death penalty on the books.

...the truth of the matter is that if you favor the death penalty, you're not being tough on crime. It has nothing whatsoever to do with, as far as we can tell, as far as anybody can tell, on the affect on crime. Zero. Zip. It's just irrelevant. It's tough on the taxpayers. It's tough on the budget. That's what its tough on.

...it's impossible to streamline death-penalty litigation to justify the cost, because doing so would dramatically increase the risk of wrongful executions.

I’m here to tell you, as the Mother of a homicide victim, that the death penalty brings as much pain as it does relief, that it creates an entirely new layer of pain, and that many survivors of homicide victims would prefer that the offender in their case spend a lifetime of unimaginably painful confinement before dying a lonely and often painful death behind bars. And then still face whatever comes next.

Indeed, because every one of us is human and all of us are actors in a fact-finding mission, if just one of us makes an error, jumps to a conclusion, or acts on a false assumption, an innocent man can be condemned to a guilty man's fate.

What I've learned from looking at the Florida system and the other systems around the country is that the death penalty is a quagmire.

A well-managed prison with proper classification and staffing can create incentives for lifers to behave while segregating and punishing those who are a threat before violence ever occurs... Prison safety depends on proper staffing, equipment, resources and training. Certainly the money spent on trying to put someone to death for over 20 years could find better use in addressing those practical needs of our correctional system.

As a police chief, I find this use of state resources offensive... Give a law enforcement professional like me that $250 million, and I'll show you how to reduce crime. The death penalty isn't anywhere on my list.

While serving as a Prosecutor I allowed myself to believe, based on certain studies, that the death penalty was a meaningful deterrent to crime… I could not have been more wrong…In an effort to exact the ultimate punishment of society's most heinous criminals we have created a labyrinth of laws, procedures and endless appeals which, of necessity, drain precious resources from the legitimate goals of our law enforcers.

While we must always work to improve our justice system and appeals process, it will never be perfect. Never. But executing a person will always be final.

[A capital case amounts to] playing on a $100-a-roll table instead of a nickel or dime table.

When you're talking about death, you can't afford to make even one mistake.

[T]here is a real worry by jurors of 'I believe in it, but what if we later find out it was someone else and it's too late to do anything about it?'

Then there is another issue I find troubling among my fellow conservatives – that is capital punishment. How is it that conservatives generally believe in 'life,' but are very willing to allow a corrupt and hugely flawed court system to condemn someone to death?

It is vitally important that our state address the needs of surviving family and friends as we struggle to heal. We know that elected officials who promote the death penalty often do so with the best intention of helping family members like us. We are writing to say that there are better ways to help us. The death penalty is a broken and costly system... and victims' families like ours don't want it.

[T]he commitment of time, money and man power necessary for a capital case is enormous and it takes from other cases. But I think what bothers me most is that it offers to the families of the victims and the survivors a false sense of closure.

A trial seeking life without parole is far speedier than a death penalty case and costs far less. By pursuing life without parole sentences instead of death, resources now spent on the death penalty prosecutions and appeals could be used to investigate unsolved homicides, modernize crime labs, and expand effective violence prevention programs.

Conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any politicized, costly, inefficient, bureaucratic, government-run operation, which we conservatives know are rife with injustice. But here the end result is the end of someone's life. In other words, it's a government system that kills people.

In this country, you are better off being rich and guilty than poor and innocent.

Despite the best intentions of law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and jurors, innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death. The margin for error with the death penalty is too great. Once imposed, it is a bell that cannot be unrung.

If I were ever killed in the line of duty, I would never, ever want my wife or children to have to suffer the way the families who testified before me have suffered. Instead, I would want to know that the person who did it was behind bars for life, and that my family had the services they needed to heal and the financial support they needed to live without further sacrifice.

It might be easier to allow the death penalty to continue if it were less expensive than life in prison. If the courts treated rich and poor equally. If it truly was a deterrent. If everyone that was executed was guilty. Unfortunately the sad truth about the death penalty is it is much more expensive. The courts do not disperse justice equally. It is not a deterrent. And sometimes, yes, sometimes they are innocent.

The death penalty makes no sense as a law enforcement tool. Any law enforcement officer will tell you that it has no deterrent effect. Coupled with how much time, energy and money we pour into the death penalty system, it is nothing but a burden on prosecutors, the courts and the taxpayers. If we get rid of the death penalty, prosecutor's offices and the courts would be more effective and the public will be safer as a result.

We can never build a system that is able to prevent the execution of those who are actually innocent. To me, this is a compelling argument why we should abolish the Death Penalty.

If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed.

The Constitution guarantees the right to an attorney. It doesn't say the lawyer has to be awake.

It is now nearly seven years since my brother Bob's murder. His killer is still walking the streets. My message and voice are focused on dispelling the delusion that the death penalty keeps us safe. We are wasting millions each year sentencing a few aging convicts to death while thousands more murders each year remain unsolved and tens of thousands of family members like me are left with little hope for any justice.

Lest there be any doubt, the idea that the death penalty is fairly and rationally imposed in this country is a farce.

The death penalty simply puts families in a state of suspended animation, almost never delivering on the promise of healing while always holding out the false promise of "closure".

...being selected as a defendant for a capital case is as random and serendipitous as being struck by lightning.

One capital case absorbs the resources of another 200 cases. I don't think I'm exaggerating. The truth is, I can spend an 18-month period working out 50 major cases or one capital case.

North Carolina conservatives, liberals and everyone in between should question whether our state government should authorize execution of people when we know, to a moral certainty, that some of them are innocent. There is no principled justification for any conservative to place limits on government power in all other areas, but grant it the power to kill, knowing it will make mistakes.

The death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.

It is a human system, and because it is fallible and because it is human, it makes mistakes. Executions make those mistakes irreversible.

Much has changed since I voted to reinstate the death penalty twenty years ago. New technologies such as DNA and other evidence have shown that people can make terrible mistakes.

California spends $137 million per year to fund our death penalty system. The same amount could instead be used to hire an additional 1,780 criminal investigators or 2,132 crime lab technicians in order to solve more murders.

The millions of dollars and thousands of hours or prosecutorial time that we spend on a handful of capitol case would be much better invested in effective programs to prevent crime and prosecute offenders. The death penalty is a costly distraction from real programs that could help our communities.

So I say to you at this particular point that based upon what I've seen after more than 40 years of dealing with these cases, is that capital punishment has no place in the judicial system of any state... because it is fraught with error, it is fraught with mistakes.

I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial... [P]eople who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

During my 30 years as a Maryland prosecutor, I saw the death penalty system up close. I sent 12 defendants notices to prepare for a capital trial, tried six of them, and obtained death penalty verdicts in two. The crimes were cruel and the killers were wicked. I believed that if we are to have a death penalty, they deserved it. I have changed my mind.

As probably the only attorney in the state of Montana who's successfully sought and secured a conviction in a death penalty case, I know firsthand the turmoil it took on the surviving family member in that case...

After a murder occurs, victims may have a variety of perspectives on exactly what will bring them justice or healing. But we can all agree that preventing the murder in the first place would have been the best use of state resources.

The reality is that death penalty cases are so complex and so labor intensive that low-paid attorneys actually have to choose between putting on an adequate defense and losing money on the case... A system that puts a person's life on the line cannot hang its hopes on the sheer luck that a few extraordinary good samaritans will always be there and be willing to make these kinds of sacrifices.

You're the American people. You sentenced a guy to be executed. You give him a trial, then you send him to me to be put to death. Then later on you [say] that this guy was innocent. You didn't put him to death. I did. I performed the execution. So you might suffer a little. I'm going to suffer a lot, because I performed the job.

As a member of the New York Senate from 1966 to 1989, I voted 12 times to establish the death penalty in New York... I regret my votes in favor of the death penalty.

...it is just absurd that we would pull officers from the streets and at the same time spend millions of dollars to have a death penalty system that has not been proven to prevent crime.

I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.

...the death penalty is not an effective law enforcement tool in practice. It is a distraction from justice.

Before working on Texas Death Row, I strongly supported capital punishment,

There was this big old-line officer, a well liked fellow, and he oversaw the executions. Afterwards he’d get very, very drunk and not come in for several days. It’s terrible, terrible – I get very emotional thinking about it. I certainly don’t like terrorism or murder but there has to be a better way than putting men to death.

Continuing to spend millions of dollars to take a murder defendant who has already been caught and subject him to death rather than life without parole will not prevent the next murder. Redirecting money to more vigorously apprehend and prosecute armed robbers, rapists, burglars, and those who commit gun crimes will prevent murders and save lives.

I do know, though, the effect of the death penalty on the staff working in the death house. I remember quite clearly PK Kelly who... talked about how he had to kill people and he was never sure whether the person he was killing was innocent or guilty. It had a terrible impact on him and the other workers in the death house. Many of them drank excessively.

For those who believe in the virtue of limited government and criticize roundly when government does not work well, capital punishment does not meet fundamental conservative standards. Not only is it applied arbitrarily, but our judicial system cannot even figure out how to examine it properly.

The death penalty throws millions of dollars down the drain – money that I could be putting directly to work fighting crime every day – while dragging victims' families through a long and torturous process that only exacerbates their pain.

The state can protect many more officers at a fraction of the cost by adding police, providing the best protective equipment available, and implementing effective policing programs known to reduce crime. The death penalty is simply a distraction from the real issues surrounding public safety.

You have to pass a test to be a patent lawyer. You have to pass none to try a death penalty case in so many states.

I think [the death penalty is] very expensive, and the delays are inordinate, delaying closure for the victims' families.

I always supported the death penalty... [But] I concluded that we should eliminate the death penalty wherever we can. Primarily because we cannot guarantee that an innocent person will not be executed.

I no longer want the men accused of killing my husband executed... I would rather see the death penalty abolished and reparations made to the victims' wives or husbands and to their children. I know how hard it is to go looking for a job, because my job was staying at home and taking care of the home and kids, and my husband was the breadwinner. I have faced that situation, and, believe you me, it's not easy.

...if you make a mistake and execute somebody, it is irrevocable. You don't dig up a coffin in a grave yard and open it up and say I'm sorry, we made a mistake. Our justice system demands more than just that.

Jurors realize that instead of having to make that terrible decision (voting for the death penalty), they can vote to put someone in prison and ensure that defendant is no longer a harm to society. It makes it easier for them to return a verdict of life without the possibility of parole.

If you do back-of-the-envelope calculations, it becomes clear that no rational criminal should be deterred by the death penalty, since the punishment is too distant and too unlikely to merit much attention. As such, economists who argue that the death penalty works are put in the uncomfortable position of having to argue that criminals are irrationally overreacting when they are deterred by it.

...my direct experience prosecuting prison homicides changed my mind [about the death penalty]. I have come to believe that the death penalty is an incalculable drain on our limited criminal justice resources.

There is a very strong case to be made for a review of our death penalty statutes and even look at the possibility of having life without parole so we don't look up one day and determined that we as the state of Texas have executed someone who is in fact innocent.

At least five men who were sentenced to death in Georgia had lawyers who referred to them in court as 'niggers.'

The money N.C. spends on the death penalty for trials, appeals and executions could instead be spent on violence prevention and offender intervention programs such as the Juvenile Justice Project at Campbell University. Preventing violent crime is something that would truly honor our loved ones.

Abolishing the death penalty and using life without parole instead can't fix all the injustices exposed in courts across the nation. But at least no one would be executed as a result.

When a criminal defendant is forced to pay with his life for his lawyer’s errors, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system as a whole is compromised.

The moral and monetary investment of the death penalty is significantly greater than the return to society.

We bow to no one in our support for tough law enforcement policies. We believe, however, that tough law enforcement policies must also be smart and effective. After much study and deliberation, we have come to believe that Maryland's death penalty is neither smart nor effective. Nor, because it is necessarily imposed in an inconsistent manner, is it tough.

From the very beginning, the death penalty makes false claims about how it "helps" victims. We are told that we need the death penalty for "closure" and "justice." But in reality, fewer than 2 percent of all cases end up with death verdicts, so it's simply wrong to act as if the healing process for families must be tied to an execution. Do we really believe there's no justice for the other 98 percent?

The millions of taxpayer dollars we are currently wasting on a dysfunctional death penalty could be used for actual public safety measures.

The death penalty exacts a terrible price in dollars, lives and human decency. Rather than tamping down the flames of violence, it fuels them while draining millions of dollars from more promising efforts to restore safety to our lives.

Prosecutors must reveal the dirty little secret they too often share only among themselves: The death penalty actually hinders the fight against crime.

We really can find no way to do this that will take the arbitrariness out of the system.

The sad fact remains that even today a lab performing a cholesterol test is subject to greater federal and state regulatory oversight than a crime lab generating evidence that can lead to the death penalty.

Even in the best of circumstances, our system allows for error...As a matter of public respect for our justice system, we cannot tolerate error in execution.

Spending all this money on the death penalty might be worth it - if it actually made our communities safer. But it doesn't… Our communities would be exponentially better off by reinvesting the time, money and resources we spend on trying to get a few people executed into crime prevention measures that work.

Honor my son and other victims of murder by acting with the highest regard for human life. You must act with the minds and spirits at levels higher that the murderer who killed my son.

There are many people who commit heinous crimes, and I'd be the first to stand up with emotion and say they should lose their lives...But when I look at the unfairness of it, the fact that the poor and people of color are most often the victims when it comes to the death penalty, and how many cases we've gotten wrong now that we have DNA evidence to back us up, I mean, it just tells me life imprisonment is penalty enough.

I left the state's attorney's office more than ten years ago, but I still remember the agony of attempting to make the fundamental decision whether to ask a jury or judge to condemn someone to death. Our system invests an individual prosecutor with unfettered discretion to make that decision. I now believe that to do so rationally and fairly is beyond human capabilities.

The cost, county officials say, can be an unexpected and severe budgetary shock – much like a natural disaster, but without any federal relief to ease the strain. To pay up, counties must raise taxes, cut services, or both.

There's just no way I could conclude that the way we do this makes any sense. I have come to the conclude that, in fact, we apply the death penalty in a very arbitrary manner.

There is no foolproof way to determine guilt. The system we have is a wonderful system for all kinds of cases, but it's driven by human beings and they're not perfect even when they're doing their very best. That's why I say that we have to abolish the death penalty; an execution can't be undone.

So, if it's not a deterrent, if it's not cost effective, if it begets more violence, if it releases a murderer from his earthly punishment, if it puts the victim's family through years and years of reliving the event, if it does not change our life without our loved one, and if it makes us no better than the murderer, what possible reasons could you have, could we have to have a death penalty?

We've had the death penalty since 1994, and we continue to pay for the process with little results... But we continue to cut the programs that could prevent these types of crimes.

When I was a prosecutor there were two other prosecutors in my office that worked on a death penalty case for the entire two years that I was there. Without the death penalty on the books, those two prosecutors could have prosecuted 200 violent criminals each within that time frame. Imagine that, 400 violent criminals off the street -- instead, they worked on a death penalty case that never resulted in death.

More and more, the climate is against trying capital cases...

There is a growing recognition that the death penalty simply can't work. It's a complex system that arbitrarily selects defendants for death and creates more stress and appeals, even as it is plagued by serious error. Each new exoneration reminds us of the unacceptable possibility of wrongful execution.

Sometimes I wonder whether people really understand what goes on down here and the effect it has on us. Killing people, even people you know are heinous criminals, is a gruesome business, and it takes a harsh toll… I have no doubt it’s disturbing for all of us. You don’t ever get used to it.

We have not viewed [abolition] as an impediment in the disposition of murder cases…As a practical matter, we have really seen no difference in the way we conduct our business in prosecuting murder cases.

As a 33 year law enforcement veteran I've worked all types of cases with all types of police officers, judges, and attorneys. I've come to realize the system is composed of imperfect human beings who, unfortunately, carry their emotions and bias into their decision-making. It has rendered the death penalty an unfair and inhumane punishment.

The very notion that we need the death penalty to keep prisons safe is both professionally and personally offensive. I don’t believe there is a single qualified prison warden in this country that wouldn’t trade the death penalty for more resources to keep his or her facility safe. The death penalty system is just a drain on those resources, and it serves no purpose in the safety of the public or prisons.

It has been said that the men on death row are inhuman, cold-blooded killers. But as I stood and watched a grieving mother leave her son for the last time, I questioned how the sordid business of executions was supposed to be the great equalizer.

I think that any reasonable person would have to reach that conclusion that someone has been executed for a crime they didn't commit.

If my mother were alive, she would be proud that I came forward today. My mother always told me that my job is to make this world a better place to live. New Hampshire would be a better place without the death penalty.

The criminal justice system is hard enough on survivors. When the death penalty is added to the process, the survivor's connection to the system becomes a long-term and often multi-decade nightmare that almost never ends in the promised result. I have watched too many families go through this over the years to believe that there is any way to make the system work better.

Some say there are solutions to the prolonged suffering of murder victims' family members when it comes to the death penalty – fewer appeals, less scrutiny, a cheaper system. But a shorter and cheaper system means more mistakes, more people like Ray caught in the system or even worse, executed quickly – before they can prove their innocence.

Don't misread me. You won't find any arguments here about the death penalty being unfair, immoral or barbaric. I don't buy it.... But the issue here is not about the merits of the death penalty. It's about inefficiencies and priorities. As we raise university tuitions out of sight, whack the poor and lay off cops, do we really want to be spending $308 million to snuff out one individual?

The issue is not whether there are horrible cases where the penalty seems "right". The real question is whether we will ever design a capital system that reaches only the "right" cases, without dragging in the wrong cases, cases of innocence or cases where death is not proportionate punishment. Slowly, even reluctantly, I have realized the answer to that question is no- we will never get it right.

As error-prone humans, we can't guarantee a fail-safe criminal justice system; therefore, to be truly just we must abolish capital punishment.

I think I could prove to you that I could put someone in the Waldorf Hotel for 60 to 70 years and feed them three meals a day cheaper than we can litigate a single death penalty case.

I have experienced countless violent crime scenes... Of the accused murderers my fellow officers and I have brought to justice, I do not believe any of them was deterred in the least by Nebraska’s death penalty.

I've been in this system for over 40 years. I’ve been held hostage and been through multiple prison riots. If someone told me that the death penalty would protect me as a corrections officer, I would be offended. Safety inside prisons depends on proper staffing, programming, and effective reintegration of inmates back into society. The death penalty does not safeguard anybody.

I have no moral opposition to the death penalty- I've prosecuted capital case. But I recognize that it causes a fiasco in the courts, puts victims' families through hell, and is a huge waste of time and money.

I fervently believe that capital punishment should be abolished. It's costing the state a huge amount of money.

The death penalty creates a hierarchy of victims. Whose murder is considered so bad that it is one of the chosen few to get the resources to solve it and sentence the killer to death? ...We all know that the agony of having a family member murdered is equal in all of us, no matter what color we are, how much money we have or where we live. Murder levels us all equally with its pain.

We should rethink the death penalty in this country. If even one innocent person is wrongly put to death on behalf of the state, for me, that is enough to get rid of it.

If we are serious about helping victims' families, we should go ahead and repeal the death penalty, sparing them the agonizing wait for cases to come to an end. Eliminating the death penalty will also save the state money that could be reinvested to provide more meaningful care for the families of murder victims, something I know from personal experience is lacking now.

The capital punishment system may have been put in place to serve us survivors, but it actually has been a colossal failure.

My Tía's killer was her own son -- my cousin. He was in the midst of a psychotic break....Cutting funding to treat mental illness while paying for the death penalty is simply insane.

It's the roll of the dice. If they can do it to me, they can do it to anyone.

Eliminating the death penalty will have no negative impact on community, police, victim, or prison safety. It will not hinder the prosecutorial capacity to seek, or the court’s ability to impose, ‘life without parole’ sentences for serious, heinous crimes and criminals.

“Whether or not one receives the death penalty depends upon the discretion of the prosecutor who initiates the proceeding, the competence of counsel who represents the defendant, the race of the victim, the race of the defendant, the make-up of the jury, the attitude of the judge, and the attitude and make-up of the appellate courts that review the verdict.”

No set of procedures can completely guard against human error. Believe me, I was certain Ronald Cotton was the man who raped me — certain.

We don't even know how many children have an immediate family member on death row in the United States today. Worse, we don't know the effect that having a parent executed will have upon their impressionable lives, and cost society may pay, for that impact...these children are all innocent victims of the state's efforts to kill their loved ones.

I have seen the ugliness of murder up close and personal. But I have never heard a murderer say they thought about the death penalty as consequence of their actions prior to committing their crimes.

I spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row. I was not saved by the system. I was saved in spite of the system.

Spending our tax dollars on actually preventing crimes, instead of pursuing death sentences after they've already been committed, will assure us we will have fewer victims.

Do we want more lawyers arguing in court, or more cops on the street? Do we want longer trials, or better victim services? Do we want to kill an unlucky few (not necessarily the worst), or do we want to help troubled kids before they end up hurting someone? In the real world, these are the choices we must make.

As I presided over Massie's execution, I thought about the abuse and neglect he endured as a child in the foster care system. We failed to keep him safe, and our failure contributed to who he was as an adult. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to kill him, what if we spent that money on other foster children so that we stop producing men like Massie in the first place?

Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime. If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong. But the reality is the system is not perfect – far from it.

We've heard a lot about statistics today but I am here to tell you that the people who have been exonerated and released from death rows across the United States aren't just statistics. They're human beings, human beings who had hopes and dreams, just like all Americans.

We've got a system in Kentucky where there's not enough money for public advocates, for prosecutors, for drug courts, family courts, for juvenile services, for rehabilitation programs, and we're using the money we have in a way I think is unwise... Every dollar that goes to our ineffective capital punishment system is a dollar taken away from other needs.

The death penalty has failed victims’ family members in virtually every way, and many of us – including many who support the death penalty in principle – have come to support its end.

The assumption is all too often made that all murder-victim family members want the death penalty. The horrible reality for those of us who have lost loved ones to homicide is that nothing that happens to their murderers is going to bring our loved ones back.

Our criminal justice system doesn’t always mete out justice and fairness in neat little packages – sometimes it’s a little rough. It’s not something you can compute with a calculus or with any kind of certainty as to who belongs and who doesn’t on death row.

The death penalty absolutely costs more money, in fact the DA's office and
the Public Defender's Office, everyone agrees it's much more costly than
incarceration.

Unfortunately, no state treasury has a bottomless pit of law enforcement dollars. In making choices about the most effective way to spend them, the death penalty would be last on my list.

I can testify from experience that our current system is most unjust for the victims and their loved ones. I can only hope to save other families from the grief of the never-ending appellate process. I promote the substitution of the death penalty only with a life sentence that truly means life in prison with no possibility of parole.

If the millions of dollars currently spent on the death penalty were spent on investigating unsolved homicides, modernizing crime labs and expanding effective violence prevention programs, our communities would be much safer.