Richard Jaffe says his book lays out reasons the death penalty does not work. (Jason Wallis Photography)
In his more than three decades as a lawyer, Richard Jaffe has
defended hundreds of people charged with ending the lives of others --
including more than 60 charged with capital murder.
Some
were acquitted. Others were not. But Jaffe believes not one of his
clients, or those of any other lawyer, should ever have to face the
ultimate penalty for their crimes -- death.
Through a retelling
of some of the high-profile and more routine cases he has handled in
his new book -- "Quest for Justice: Defending the Damned" -- Jaffe poses
what he says are troubling questions about the use of the death penalty
in Alabama and elsewhere.
California is having problems with its death penalty. It hasn’t
executed anyone since 2006, when a federal court ruled that its method
of lethal injection was improper and could cause excessive pain. The
state spent five years coming up with a better method — and last month, a
judge threw that one out too. One indication of just how bogged down
California’s capital-punishment system is: the inmate who brought the
latest lethal-injection challenge has been on death row for 24 years.
Michael Morton was exonerated
by DNA evidence this month after being wrongfully convicted of
murdering his wife and serving nearly 25 years in prison in Texas. In
seeking to prove Mr. Morton’s innocence, his lawyers found in recently
unsealed court records evidence that the prosecutor in the original
trial, Ken Anderson, had withheld critical evidence that may have helped
Mr. Morton.
The $1.9m spent on capital punishment
could pay for a year's salary for 52 police officers in New Orleans.
Photograph: Greg Smith/Corbis
Capital punishment
in the US costs, on average, $1.9m more per case than life without
parole. The price of sentencing one person to death could instead be
spent on:
• A year's salary for 52 police officers in New Orleans - the city with the highest murder rate in the US.
• Two new fire trucks in Texas, where Rick Perry cut the budget used to fight wild fires and asked for federal money instead.
• A refund for 6,333 City University of New York students of their $300 fee hike imposed after cuts in state and city funding.
• Paying to rehire 46 teachers laid off in Detroit during the latest budget crisis and mass redundancies.
• Buying health insurance for 1,400 uninsured American families.
