Death penalty costs to be focus of audit

Kansas has seven awaiting execution

? State lawmakers on Wednesday launched a probe into the costs of death-penalty cases, but some said they didn’t know what the value of such information will be.

“I’m not sure it’s going to prove anything,” said state Sen. Bill Bunten, R-Topeka. Regardless of the cost of a capital-punishment case, Bunten said, some offenders commit acts that are so heinous, they deserve to be executed.

But other lawmakers, such as state Sen. Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said the Legislature needed to know how much it cost to prosecute, defend and carry death-penalty cases through the numerous rounds of appeals.

Once the cost is determined, officials should decide whether the expense is good state policy.

“We don’t have an idea whether it’s worth having a death penalty,” Hensley said.

The questioning of the financial cost of the state’s death penalty comes at a time when lawmakers are scrambling for dollars for education and social services.

State costs for defending John E. Robinson Sr. and Reginald and Jonathan Carr in capital-murder cases last year neared $2 million. All three were convicted.

But Hensley noted those costs didn’t include the cost to prosecute the cases.

“We’ve never had the other side of the ledger,” he said.

The state has seven murderers under sentence of death.

The review of the costs also is occurring as several death-penalty cases are up for further judicial proceedings after a state Supreme Court decision that found faulty jury instructions in the state’s capital-punishment law.

Wednesday, the House-Senate Legislative Post Audit Committee approved an inquiry into the costs of capital punishment in Kansas.

Since Kansas’ reinstatement of the death penalty in 1994, no one has yet been executed.

The discussion of the Post Audit Committee led to a remark by state Rep. Frank Miller, R-Independence, that Kansas was too slow to execute. Having grown up in Texas, Miller said, “It makes me think, if you’re going to kill your mother-in-law, do it in Kansas.”

The inquiry on costs, which will be conducted by state auditors, will take about three months.

Auditors will try to determine the overall costs of death-penalty cases, whether less expensive measures could be taken to reduce those costs, and whether an alternative to the death penalty would be less costly to the government.

Meanwhile, the House-Senate Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice is examining state laws protecting mentally ill defendants from execution.

Both reviews will be forwarded to the full Legislature for the 2004 legislative session.