Was Justice Served?

Was Justice Served?

Last month, a man named Murray Hooper was executed in Arizona for a double murder that occurred in 1980. He’d been in prison for forty-two years before being executed. According to the article lower courts had previously rejected attempts to introduce DNA and fingerprints from the crime scene. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute plea.

The quote in the article from Mark Brnovich, the Arizona Attorney General, was, “The people of Arizona made it clear once again that those who commit heinous crimes in our state will be held accountable.” But were those who committed this crime held accountable? There were two other men convicted with Murray Hooper and they both died in prison.

I’m not here to argue for or against capital punishment. Arizona has capital punishment. What I’m arguing is that our justice system is messed up if criminals convicted of a capital crime sit in prison for forty-two years before the sentence is carried out. And if a person has been on death row for that long, and is now seventy-six years old, is there really a point to the execution?

The article went on to say that this was the first execution since 2014, when they were halted. Okay, but that means Hooper had been incarcerated for thirty-four years at that point.

Why does it take that long to carry out a death sentence? Our justice system needs an overhaul. If there is going to be capital punishment, then it needs a process in place to carry out the executions within a reasonable amount of time. Appeals should not take more than six months. Therefore, if appealing to the three courts above the district court, the longest someone should stay on death row is eighteen months.

The governor can always stay an execution as well if there is doubt or circumstances warranting a stay.

I’m sure there’s some family around that remember what happened and maybe they’ve been given some closure. However, they’ve had to live without that closure for forty-two years. One might argue that the victims were once again slighted by the court system, a trend that seems to be increasing.

As far as the rest of Arizona, I doubt there’s many people who remember what happened. The message sent wasn’t what Brnovich thought it was. We have not told criminals that they will be held accountable, at least to the point of death, when it takes that long to carry out the sentence. Quite the opposite. Don’t worry about the death penalty. Chances are, if caught, you’ll die in prison. For this crime, that was the result for two-thirds of the convicted criminals.

There are two primary benefits to the death penalty. Neither of which was realized in this case. First, as crass as it may sound, is cost. We’ve held a prisoner for forty-two years. The average cost of an inmate in an Arizona prison is roughly $25,000. Holding Hooper for forty-two years cost the state just over $1M. At that point, another few years would not have mattered much.

The second benefit of the death penalty is as a deterrent. If executions are swift and public, they can be a deterrent for capital crimes. However, in this case, it certainly wasn’t swift. The risk reward factor of committing a capital crime does not bring execution into play when death row inmates stay in prison for decades.

If we are going to use capital punishment, then we need to use it effectively. Leaving prisoners convicted of capital crimes in prison for decades is not an effective use of capital punishment. Justice, in this case, was not served. The courts and the state failed the victims and the citizens.