Fox Article On Fiscal Impact on States of Death Penalty Cases

Recently, due to most states still claiming budgetary crises even after the massive stimulus monies which were received by all the states under the Obama Administration and Congress there have been more and more articles directed at Constitutional government duties and provisions which are costing the states and state citizens apparently a bundle.

Today a Fox media article reported such a position with respect to the costs of executing a death row inmate which is straining a great many state budgets, apparently.

However, nowhere in this article, as with so many which are now appearing, has it been pointed out that most of these states would not be facing budgetary crises at all if they also simply constrained themselves to collecting taxation and distributing it first and foremost to provide funding for those legal duties with which they are charged under their state constitutions.

In other words, no matter how much money the states seem to receive from their state citizens in all the levels of taxation also that are in concert with the federal government, it never seems to be enough simply because progressively all states throughout the nation have provided freebies and gimmees also to their selected sovereign subjects at the cost of the state citizenry.

In discretionary expenditures more and more, while then screaming poverty when it comes to providing funding for the public duties and functions which they ARE actually responsible for.

Such is the case with this scenario, it appears to me, along with other more capitalist and selfish motivations.

Yes, death penalty cases are costly due to the number of appeals that are available and accorded most death row inmates.

And unfortunately, the option of the death penalty due to lobbying efforts of various victims groups have expanded even the applicability of that punishment for crimes in which there are or may have been mitigating circumstances for the actual death or death(s) involved.

Many of which clearly were not without precipitating circumstances or motivation, or were not clearly committed upon strangers or the public at large with clear premeditation ("aforethought") involved.

Expanding this ulimate penalty to include technically even many cases of second and third degree murder has resulted in more and more criminals now on death row to begin with and many of whom were convicted by juries which were not in any manner unbiased and independent due to slanted reporting and media coverages such as those that occur on programs such as Nancy Grace, who hardly can be called a journalist but is using her program more as a forum to continue her career as a prosecuting attorney using the national viewing audience as her juries and presenting spins and innuendos in many instances as fact for ratings for her bosses, the clearly commercial corporate media.

Left out is also the fact that there are other crimes now that were in the past misdemeanor offenses which have now been recategorized as felonies due also to pressure from victims groups and commercial interests.

Such as the low level DUIs throughout the country, which involve no property loss or damage, or injury but have escalated into jail sentences which have crowded then the misdemeanor local jails and facilities, and with punishments now that are so cruel and unusual and involving in many states level upon level of punishment, they in no manner reflect the common law provisions of our Constitution in having the punishment fit the crime.

There is even a move now to shift those that involve involuntary manslaughter to second degree murder charges simply due to the fact that the driver of the vehicle was "legally" intoxicated under those low level DUI provisions.

When many of those deaths that keep being brought out to manipulate the public sentiments by the insurance industry and MADD, which has become a temperance organization at its root, involve teens or new drivers where even inexperience or driver error on their part also factor in to some of those deaths, many of which occur late at night on the weekends.

Or during prom week.

As far as the self-interests of the state, it would make sense that an organization such as Fox, which promotes basically British style conservatism in global corporate profits and interests as also being part and parcel of the intent of our founders, which clearly were not hence the Boston Tea Party, would be promoting abolition of the death penalty also using cost/benefit ratios for the state kitties as their means and methods.

Since, after all, many states have also now privatized their local and state jails, and also the federal government has been making moves in this direction, in order to gain further tax revenues and also "create more jobs" in the private sector.

Most of those canteens in the local jails are also privatized at this point, and prior to arrest, of course, all monies of the detainee are seized in order to also feed those local jail canteens and their profit margins and budgets.

Many of which, not surprisingly, are owned by local sheriffs or other law enforcement personnel, in addition to local impound lots.

Which is also why more and more driving offenses are also calling for impoundment of vehicles in many states for non-moving violations even, such as failure to provide proofs of insurance or driver's licenses, even though that information can also be verified through all those newfangled computers most officers in metro cities now have in their vehicles, thanks to those stimulus monies given for the tech industries profits.

Which actually are in violation of the due process protections since no property of a citizens can be seized without a judicial order or warrant, or trial by jury especially since there are many in this country still who hold that due to the fact that even most major metropolitan areas public transportation systems are inadequate, at best, driving is a right and not a privilege at all.

In fact, with all the punishments now that are deemed also by the government attached to those driver's licenses also under the bogus implied consent laws, driving is actually becoming more and more a liability and not a privilege at all, especially due to the fact that the penalties for most minor offenses in this country are now exceeding those for criminal fraud, theft, and bodily injury.

It seems crime in America now is seen as a job and economic stimulus for both the government and those on Wall Street, since also many shares of those "services" and contractors providing both security and merchandise to those jails are listed on the global stock exchange.

The death penalty is clearly Constitutional, but the increase in costs has actually occurred, once again, due to both unlawful privatization by the states of our jails and also the corruption of our state legislatures, penal system and judiciary in not letting the punishments fit the crimes, in most instances, or statutorily ill defining or placing undue barriers on the jury or not sufficiently regulating those commercial media outlets in the name of "free speech" rather than protection of the rights of the accused to a fair and impartial trial by jury, and also affording this extreme option based on then emotion or public pressure from "foreign" sources in the national media pay cable networks.

And it is clear by the Fox spins once again, more profit can be made on those prisoners for state budgets and commercially for the now penal industrial complex, for life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Even for serial killers, murders and rapists without even the remotest possibility of rehabilitation based upon the circumstances and true factual evidence of the crimes themselves as premeditated, without any evidence of any mitigating factors or clear relationship to the victim, and in cold blood, it would appear.

And this, once again, just goes to prove that it is the almighty buck, and not justice, which has now become the focus at both the state, and federal level, and its global corporate policy maker bankers and media moguls.

The interests of justice, fundamental to this country's foundation, is nowhere in the reporting as taken from the reporter's position of state's interests, the actual position the states and this reporter are taking in the reporting itself, which is socialistic in nature, and contrary to the common law for heinous crimes such as first degree, premeditated murder as opposed to second degree (crimes of passion) or voluntary or involuntary manslaughter (auto accidents, accidental deaths).

Cut out the fat from all state's operating expenditures and budgets, and the clear Constitutional intent with respect to this punishment under the common law, and those costs would change if constrained to the intent of the founders based in the common law for such egregious criminal conduct committed by one citizen against another.

In this writer's view, It is not housing death row inmates that are breaking the state's budgets, or the cost of those appeals (which, granted, are also liberally given in some states even outside of evidence which was not heard in the original trials by those juries, or new evidence) but their unconstitutional focuses and budgetary expenditures most of all.

Which position it would appear meets or exceeds such a governmental position, based upon what is now occurring throughout the nation even after all that funny money was provided to those states in now the states increasing the tax burden on the citizens in concert with the federal government, the legal common law standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt," for any such jury determined conviction in a capital criminal matter.

Such representations by the state(s) and state representatives appear to me to be along the lines of criminal fraud or consumer fraud against the public, in and of itself, without taking the obvious in just why most states are facing these budget crises year after year into account.

Could there be underlying motivations for this article, rather than "fair and balanced" reporting?

I mean "privatizing everything" does seem to be the British Conservative/Libertarian positions, which are just as extra-Constitutional as the far left winger socialists in assuming and expanding government power and functions outside Constitutional provision, whether federal or state without the consent of the governed per the 9th.

Which positions then are an unconstitutional transfer of governmental powers, also leaving the citizenry without recourse except then to the "state actor" public/private corporate interest at higher costs overall in increasing the backlog in our courts, and their costs, and then the increased costs for some of the contractual provisions even in those public/private partnerships that the taxpayers then have no knowledge of - and many of which extend from legislative session to legislative session, rather than annually to begin with, creating a snowballing effect of greater and greater budgetary deficits or federally in the overall deficits in the process, just as those trade agreements and peace treaties now run through successive Congressional sessions and even extend from Administration to Administration at this point.

Which is why the Obama Administration and 111th Congress is now holding the bag for all those Bush Administration and Congressional errors, as Bush ended up holding the bag for all those Clinton Administration and Congressional errors.

In a representative government, just how can all these treaties and governmental contracts extend longer than one year, so that the voices of the people can then truly be heard when they become aware of some of these egregious Constitutional violations which for the most part occur after the fact due to more and more closed door sessions and bargaining between these two mainstream politicay parties, such as with this latest travesty, the health care sector stimulus?

I'll let the reader decide, based upon the "fair and balanced" reporting of not simply Fox, but the "corporate" commercially owned mainstream media in general at this point - print, cable and internet for that ad revenue and their bottom line corporate profits also most of all, along with some of the individual state legislators whose job it appears most simply do not even begin to understand.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/27/just-cost-death-penalty-killer-state-budgets/