31st Judicial District Court Finds Against Hank Skinner
The court reviewed the all the evidence and found that the results would have not been favorable to Skinner.
The statement says if the evidence had originally been available during the original trial Skinner would have been convicted anyways.(sic)
The latest numbers:
The total cost to Gray County for his case is $341,200. This includes the cost of the original 1995 trial, the 1996 appeal and DNA testing that was performed in 2001.
Skinner has been incarcerated since March 31, 1995, which calculates to:
609,120,000 seconds
10,152,000 minutes
169,200 hours
7050 days
1007 weeks (rounded down)
While a spokesman with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice could not say the cost per day of housing a death-row inmate, he said the average cost per inmate is around $50.
Based on that number, taxpayers in Texas have spent about $347,250 to house Skinner on death-row.
Source: Pampa News
2 comments:
It's hard to even know what to say in the face of those numbers. It really is mind boggling when you multiply that many many times over using the number of people on death row in Texas.
I waver back and forth on capital punishment. I know if it was someone I loved that had been murdered, I'd want to kill them myself, very slowly. OTOH, looking at it dispassionately, I wouldn't mind if the SC outlawed it again and we could have life w/out parole. That said, I do think there are some crimes so horrific that only the DP will do. I know it's supposed to be an outdated term, but sociopaths - from what I've read - can never be cured. I don't think warehousing them in a prison can be good at all and there is always the chance they could kill again.
I guess my main objection to capital punishment isn't totally that it's so final and that innocent men (or women) could be executed (although I don't think any have, at least not in the last 50 years, not in Texas)but that it's so unevenly meted out - the exact same type of murder can get the DP in...say...Harris Co., but life in Wood Co.(just examples)
I can almost argue either side, too. I was having a minor debate w/ someone a while back and told them I was wishy-washy about it, but saw the need for it in certain instances - as I mentioned. He said it was revenge by the state, pure and simple and I agreed and said I didn't see much wrong w/ that. I also said no matter what, it was the ultimate deterrent.
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