Fiscally (and morally) the Death Penalty Is Wrong

The Death Penalty bill will be heard in House Judiciary on Monday the 23rd. Please call or email or legislators to support this bill.
The Denver Post

A new bill introduced in the state House of Representatives would abolish the death penalty in Colorado. Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, claims his motive for sponsoring the bill revolves around fiscal concerns and he has no interest in rehashing the moral debate surrounding the death penalty.

Good luck.

The bill, according to Democrats, would save the state an estimated $4 million annually, which would then be applied to help investigate cold cases. While we're not sold on the veracity of the savings figure — considering the state has no idea how many death penalty cases the future holds — we believe that Colorado, like many other states, should revisit the effectiveness and necessity of the death penalty.

Republican Attorney General John Suthers has made an impassioned case that the death penalty is crucial in discouraging future horrific criminal behavior. He also contends that the only deterrent many hyper-violent inmates with life sentences have to murdering a guard or fellow inmate is the threat of the death penalty.

"If you don't have a death penalty, those are free murders," Suthers told The Post. "There remains some crimes, some murders, that anything short of the death penalty is an inadequate societal response."

Yet, there is very little evidence that the death penalty discourages violent crime.