My apologies, I meant the Las Vegas Sun.

In case you get more interesting information from Dieter, here is a rebuttal.

Innocence Issues

Death Penalty opponents have proclaimed that 129 inmates have been "released from death row with evidence of their innocence", in the US, since the modern death penalty era began, post Furman v Georgia (1972)

The number is a fraud.

Those opponents have intentionally included both the factually innocent (the "I truly had nothing to do with the murder" cases) and the legally innocent (the "I got off because of legal errors" cases), thereby fraudulently raising the "innocent" numbers. This is easily confirmed by fact checking.

It appears there are about 26 innocence cases, a 0.3% actual guilt error rate for the nearly 8000 sentenced to death since 1973. All were freed.

Deterrence Issues

16 recent US studies, inclusive of their defenses, find a deterrent effect of the death penalty.

Regardless of jurisdiction, having the death penalty will always be an added deterrent to murders, over and above any lesser punishments.

Racial issues

White murderers are twice as likely to be executed in the US as are black murderers and are executed, on average, 12 months more quickly than are black death row inmates.

Any racial combinations of defendants and/or their victims in death penalty cases, is a reflection of the crimes committed and not any racial bias within the system, as confirmed by studies from the Rand Corporation (1991), Smith College (1994), U of Maryland (2002), New Jersey Supreme Court (2003) and by a view of criminal justice statistics, within a framework of the secondary aggravating factors necessary for capital indictments.

Cost Issues

Findamentally, there is no reasonable reason for the death penalty to cosy more than equivalent life cases.

Most, if not all, of the studies finding the death penalty to be more expensive than life without parole exclude important factors, such as (1) geriatric care costs, recently found to be $69,0000/yr/inmate, (2) the death penalty cost benefit of providing for plea bargains to a maximum life sentence, a huge cost savings to the state, (3) the death penalty cost benefit of both enhanced deterrence and enhanced incapacitation, at $5 million per innocent life spared, and, furthermore, (4) many of the alleged cost comparison studies are highly deceptive.

Mr. Ryan: You have been duped.

From "Death penalty a costly proposition", By Cy Ryan, Nevada Sun

"(Richard) Dieter, chief of the Death Penalty Information Center), testifying by telephone to the Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice, said nationally two-thirds of death penalties are overturned on appeal. And 82 percent of those sentenced end up getting life terms, he added."

Totally absurd. Some reality.

7662 have been sentenced to death, 1004 executed. Cases overturned and for what reasons: 512 statute 6.7%; 784 conviction 10%; 1406 sentence 18.3%.

Total percentage overturned 35% (from 1973-2005) - not Dieter's absurd 67% claim.

It should be noted that many of the cases had solid convctions and sentences, based upon the law at the time of the trial. Many were overtuned because of new laws or case law occurring after the initial trials, meaning that the cases were handled properly at the time.

At least 4619(60%) out of the total 7662 sentenced to death were not converted to a life sentence, meaning that Dieters claim that 82% end up with a life sentence is also, wildly, absurd.

A full review would likely find that somewhere between 20-30% may receive a life sentence.

(SOURCE: "Capital Punishment 2005", appendix table 2, page 14, Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Justice Dept.)

Dieter's claims are blatantly false and easily proven so. He and his group are anti death penalty.

Dieter paraphrase: "The cost of the death penalty cases has escalated because of numerous appeals, which run 12 years on average, he said. New Jersey hasn’t executed one Death Row inmate in 25 years but has spent $250 million in the same period."

More absurdity.

The $250 million number came from an anti death penalty group in NJ. The NJ Death Penalty Commission concluded that they couldn't ascertain the cost differential between a life and death sentence.

Furthermore, it is easily argued that NJ had the more cost inefficient death penalty system in the US. In several states, it is arguable that the death penalty system is cheaper than the life without parole.

Look at Virginia, for example.

Or North Carolina.

The Duke University/North Carolina cost study is often distorted or not fully reviewed (see Dieter).

A full review finds that the study only looks at a 20 year "life" sentence. In an equal, apples to apples comparison of individual death sentences to individual life sentences, using the projected costs of a full life term, it turns out that the life sentence would cost, considerably, more than a death sentence.