Prisoners are spending 20 plus years on Death Row

In a recent USA Today article, it was revealed that in California the average Death Row inmate spends 20 years prior to execution, if they are eventually executed, at a cost of $90,000 per year. When Alabama executed three prisoners in 2007, they had spent an average of 23 years awaiting execution.

Beccaria wrote in 1764 that if deterrence was to be achieved, punishment had to be swift, certain, proportionate, and appropriate.

Obviously the first two have no connection to Death Row as it exists today. In a recent Supreme Court case, it was held that the death penalty for raping a child who was not killed was unconstitutional. Other recent holdings have found it unconstitutional to execute one who was under 18 at the time of the killing or to execute one who is mentally incompetent by virtue of a very low IQ.

Arguments for and against the death penalty abound. It is interesting to note that both Beccaria and Bentham, Classical School of Criminology, were against the death penalty. Now that life without possibility of parole is gaining a foothold in sentencing, one cannot help asking if a death penalty sentence that costs a state well over a million dollars and takes two decades or more to be carried out makes any sense, economically or from the deterrence perspective.

Should we have a separate appeals court that only handles death penalty cases in hopes of speeding up the process? Should all those for whom evidence exists that could be tested for DNA have the tests automatically? How do we assure "due process" and yet avoid executing the innocent, if that is truly possible?

Do you think the time has come for each state to have its citizens vote on whether to continue the death penalty sentence or eliminate it and convert the sentence of all on death row to life without possibility of parole?

Do you favor or oppose the death penalty? What is your reasoning for this position?