Today, an article by CCATDP supporter, Drew Johnson, was published in the Statesmen Journal. In the article, Johnson acknowledged Oregon’s broken death penalty as well as a recent study that highlighted the state’s costly capital punishment program.
Johnson wrote,
According to the study, “the average cost of defending a death penalty case at the trial level between 2002 and 2012 was $438,651, while the average cost of defending a non-death aggravated murder case at the trial level was less than half that at $216,693.”
He described the exorbitant costs as a “wake-up call” for fiscal conservatives. However, the death penalty’s enormous price tag isn’t its only shortcoming. There are many others, including the risk to innocent life, which Johnson mentioned. In the end, he believes that people who stand by conservative principles must oppose the death penalty, which Johnson clearly stated in his closing:
As conservatives, we should speak out against policies that give government too much power or waste tax dollars. The death penalty is guilty of both. That’s why ending the death penalty is the conservative thing to do.