Our View: Duncan case shows costs of capital punishment

Steve Groene has vowed to head down to Riverside County, Calif., to put a stop to another death penalty case against Joseph Duncan, who confessed to killing 10-year-old Anthony Martinez in 1997. Groene says the prosecution will be expensive, it will drag the memory of a little boy through the muck and it will torment the family.

He is right, but all of that was also true of this year’s federal capital punishment case against the murderer of his son, Dylan.

Kootenai County decided in 2006 not to pursue the death penalty, instead settling for life in prison without the possibility of parole. Had the case ended there, Joseph Duncan would have died in prison for killing Dylan, Slade and Brenda Groene, and Mark McKenzie. The Groene family would have been spared the horrible details. No sick video. No Shasta Groene recounting the horror. No news accounts dredging up the awful memories.

The passion for executions is understandable, but once that becomes the goal, a guaranteed set of safeguards kick in. It has to be that way, because the punishment is irreversible.

First, the costs will approach $1 million, which far exceeds the price of locking a murderer away forever. The defense will be vigorous and appeals automatic and lengthy. Families cannot control what evidence is entered and what facts are discussed. At sentencing, the level of depravity must be determined, so horrendous details are exhumed.

Steve Groene looks at those factors and wonders why Riverside County would proceed. We wondered the same when the federal government pursued the death penalty in his case. “Justice” is usually invoked, but most aggravated murder cases do not yield an execution. Are those families denied justice because the murders weren’t of sufficient depravity? Do their hearts ache any less? Of course not.

“Closure” is also invoked, but that’s wishful thinking. Even if such a psychological state could be achieved, it would face a long delay. In California, it takes 20 to 25 years from sentencing to execution. A commission there recently reported that to clear its death penalty backlog, the state would have to double the amount it spends on lawyers and investigators. The cost would be $100 million a year. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, California has executed 13 people. Three times that many death-row inmates have died of natural causes.

All states face these enormous costs, which is why so few death penalty cases are pursued. Yet, Riverside County is determined to press on, despite the fact that Duncan has already been handed three death sentences.

These murderers will die in prison. It isn’t worth the emotional toll and taxpayer costs to try to speed that process. That is true in the Martinez case. It was also true in the Groene case.