State Sen. Joan Huffman has a bill up (SB 377) tomorrow in the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that would expand the option for prosecutors to pursue capital punishment in cases where a child under ten years old is murdered. Presently prosecutors can seek the death penalty when the victim is under six years old, as well as under a litany of other circumstances. I'm sure testimony on behalf of the bill will be emotional, and there's a legitimate debate to be had about what is the "right" punishment for people who kill children: Whether death or life imprisonment, for example, best exemplifies "justice."
But I want to set aside those hot-button questions for the time being and focus instead on the predictable, politically motivated lie in the fiscal note that "No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated" from this bill. Except everyone knows the cost of capital punishment isn't "insignificant" at all, especially when the death penalty is sought and especially considering the cost of appeals, which like it or not are a reality that even the Roberts court is not likely to reverse.
Consider: Remarkably, Illinois now estimates that their abolition of the death penalty earlier this month will save the state $4.7 million in annual appellate costs, letting them fire 37 employees at the state appellate defender (Texas usually pays contract fees to outside counsel instead of having a public defender do the job). And Illinois only had 15 people on death row! Texas at the moment has 314. God knows what a comparable cost figure would be here!
According to the Criminal Justice Impact Statement, "In fiscal year 2010, 13 offenders were admitted to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for capital murder of a child under six years of age." If people are convicted for killing children age 6-9 at the same rate as from 0-5, there will be ten additional capital murder convictions each year, give or take, as a result of this bill. Those killers would have been convicted of murder, anyway, so the main effect of the enhancements is to invite years of costly, avoidable federal appeals.
Even the LBB fiscal note acknowledged SB 377 would place an additional burden on local taxpayers: "the fiscal impact to a county in which an indigent defendant is tried could be substantial. According to the Office of Court Administration, the minimum cost of such a case may be as low as $100,000 but it could exceed $500,000. This could be a significant cost for smaller counties." There are also hidden, additional costs for the state, for crime labs, and for all sorts of ancillary agencies that support the process.
Like all enhancements that aren't accounted for with an accompanying revenue stream or a reduction in other penalties, this bill amounts to an unfunded mandate, generating more of the most expensive type of criminal cases with little evidence the law will deter. Emotional arguments aside, LBB's failure to assign fiscal notes to marginal enhancements like SB 377 allows the Legislature to avoid important debates about how will the state pay for the cost of its git-tuff policies.
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10 comments:
Am I missing something? Isn't the LBB supposed to be non-partisan and unbiased? What a shame.
LBB is nonpartisan. The deal is, increasing criminal penalties is a bipartisan pastime, so most legislators from both parties want all enhancements to have "insignificant" fiscal notes. It's an area of longstanding bipartisan agreement.
Ironically, as a practical matter, Democrats carry more enhancements, by volume, than Republicans, so if there was any partisan spin to the practice it would actually favor them. Really they all do it, though. It's a rare legislator indeed whose bill portfolio does't include at least one "enhancement" each session, and there are virtually never bills ratcheting old enhancements down.
I'm a death penalty supporter, but the combination of costs and interminable appeals, plus the innocence issue, makes it appear to be a practice we should learn to do without.
I suppose it might still have a fiscal impact, but just because the punishment is enhanced for these offenders doesn't mean the death penalty would always be sought, does it? Couldn't the new life without parole option also be pursued without all the capital punishment costs involved?
Four of the people whom Anthony Graves was wrongfully convicted of killing, even though he was completely innocent, were under ten years old. Expanding the death penalty will increase the chances of other innocent people being sentenced to death.
Isn't this the time to be finding places to trim the fat? Do we really need the death penalty? Time for fiscal responsibility to carry the day. Rid the state of the death penalty and continue to fund intensive treatment to probationers and parolees to prevent even greater criminal justice spending.
Scott, i see what you're saying, but it seems to me that they're not fulfilling their constitutional mandate if they're being influenced by partisan politics, Democrat or Republican. If they're not going to be honest and unbiased, then it seems to me that they have outlived their purpose.
Why shouldn't the LBB's behavior regarding fraudulent fiscal notes be considered a crime? Falsifying a government record, maybe?
Doran, if they said it was "zero" it'd be falsifying. By saying it's "insignificant," they acknowledge there's a cost but just pretend they need not account for it.
In 2009, e.g., the Lege created 59 new felonies, each deemed "insignificant" in and of itself by LBB, but which collectively become quite significant indeed, especially over time when they repeat the process every two years.
I've always been a supporter of the death penalty until this year. As a political conservative I no longer find it compatable with my conservative thinking. Limited government beliefs and cases of altered evidence were enough to push me to the 'other side'. On the other hand, should anyone ever murder one of my children....
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