Philadelphia Inquirer
Commentary, January 17, 2017
There is a crisis in America. Two-thirds of the states in
this country, and the federal government, are spending billions of taxpayer
dollars caring for a small group of people in need of a rather simple medical
procedure.
Although there are about 3,000 people waiting on the
procedure, only about one-quarter of one percent receive the inexpensive
procedure each year. As the cost for caring for these people increases annually
- about $4.5 billion a year - the number receiving the procedure has decreased
to a 25-year low.
The selection process has been labeled arbitrary and each
and every recipient is tied up in years and years of litigation. The layered
government bureaucracy begins at the county level and often ends up in the lap
of the U.S. Supreme Court. The process is so flawed that medical practitioners
want nothing to do with it.
Where is the outrage at this ridiculously dysfunctional
government initiative?
Outrage? On Election Day, California, Nebraska, and Oklahoma
had an opportunity to abolish the death penalty - the state-sponsored medical
procedure used to end the life of condemned killers - and all three states
declined. In fact, voters in California voted to speed up the execution
process.
That is not a complete surprise. A Gallup poll in October
found that support for the death penalty has remained consistent at about 60
percent. That number is still a solid majority of Americans, but far below
where it was in the 1990s, when about 80 percent of Americans backed the death
penalty.
If this were a medical procedure to save lives - as opposed
to snuffing them out - and managed in a patch work of statutes and policies,
congressional hearings would be convened and ultimately heads would roll ... so
to speak.
If this were a life-saving medical procedure, the medical
profession would adopt a best-practice and the process would be standardized
and uniform. But then, medical standards are not promulgated by the
legislature. Politics - posturing, looking tough, and getting re-elected - is
not part of the equation in the medical profession.
Even though there are signs that some lawmakers and a
majority of the public do not want to see the death penalty abolished, the
decline is obvious.
There were only 20 executions nationwide this year - the
fewest number in the United States in a quarter century. Executions have
dropped dramatically from the late 20th-century peak of 98 in 1999.
Not only have executions dropped, the number of death
sentences being imposed have declined even more precipitously. There will be a
total of 30 new death sentences this year, the lowest number since the Supreme
Court struck down the death penalty inFurman v. Georgia in 1972. According
to the Washington Post, in 1996 juries in death penalty states across the
country handed down 315 death sentences.
Just five states carried out executions this year. Sixteen
of the 20 executions were carried out in only Georgia and Texas.
In Pennsylvania the process can only be described as
bizarre. Gov. Wolf has declared a pseudo-moratorium on executions, an action
for which the governor was skewered by lawmakers and prosecutors alike. In
fact, the Philadelphia district attorney sued him to start re-imposing
executions.
This in a state that has executed three people since the new
death penalty statute was enacted in 1976. All three men volunteered to be
executed. They waived their appeal rights and sought to be put to death. The
last involuntary execution in Pennsylvania was in 1962.
Pennsylvania officials are fighting about something that,
for all intents and purposes, will not happen any time soon, if ever. The time
may be at hand to end the insanity of the death penalty.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. in New Castle, Pa., and the author of "The
Executioner's Toll, 2010."@MatthewTMangino.
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