Montana Senators Consider Abolishing Death Penalty

By Daniel Testa, 2-07-07

	Caption: David Kaczynski, brother of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday supporting a bill to eliminate the death penalty in Montana. Photo by Dan Testa.

There are days in the legislature when policy debates over the minutiae of issues like zoning, tax policy, and tuition cuts pale next to those of life and death.

Wednesday was one of those days, as the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony over a bill to eliminate capital punishment in Montana.

“During the wild and wooly frontier days, a collapsible gallows traveled around the state and executions were public spectacles,” said the sponsor of SB 306, Sen. Dan Harrington, D-Butte. “Now they have become secretive, as if we, the public, are afraid to witness the sentence passed by the courts.”

Harrington’s bill would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without parole as the most severe punishment available to prosecutors and juries in the state.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, there have been three executions by lethal injection in Montana. Convicted murderer David Dawson was the most recent, executed in August of last year. In contrast, Texas has had 380 executions since 1976 and 24 executions last year.

Church officials, legal experts, prison wardens, criminologists, the brother of the Unabomber and those with family members who have been the victims of violent crimes lined up to oppose the death penalty.

Ed Sheehy, a Missoula public defender who has been involved in eight death penalty trials, said the legal fees when a death penalty is involved in a trial are exorbitant.

The American Bar Association requires, in a death penalty case, that legal specialists and mental health experts—who cost the state hundreds of dollars an hour—be present, Sheehy said. He went on to predict that two ongoing death penalty cases in Bozeman will virtually wipe out the budget of the Office of the State Public Defender.

Ronald Waterman, a Helena attorney, said there is a good chance a Federal Court will rule the use of lethal injection unconstitutional. An appeal is on its way to the ninth circuit court of appeals now, he added.

Gary Hilton, a former warden of the New Jersey prison system said life in prison without parole is as much a deterrent for potential criminals as the death penalty.

“I, personally, can think of nothing more horrific than growing old and eventually dying in prison,” Hilton said. “The older you get, the more you become a target.”

Among the higher profile death penalty opponents to testify was David Kaczynski, the brother of convicted murderer, Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber.

David, now a spokesperson for a New York anti-death penalty group, said turning his brother in provided a first-hand look at the imperfect justice system and how it treats the mentally ill.

“Fortunately, my brother will spend the rest of his life in prison,” Kaczynski said. “But Ted’s life wasn’t spared because he’s any sicker than one hundred or so seriously mentally-ill people that have been executed since 1992. His life was spared because he had great lawyers.”

J.A. Ziegler of Billings, whose 78-year-old father was shot to death by two teenage boys, told the committee that while the murder devastated his family, he was able to eventually make peace with his father’s murderers.

“Nothing yesterday, today, or tomorrow will bring my father back,” Ziegler said. “Taking the lives of the two youth that murdered my father would satisfy nothing and will only promulgate the ‘Eye for an Eye’ theory.”

But questions of morality and religious belief were also central to the arguments of those who opposed Harrington’s bill, in support of the death penalty.

The Bible says if a murderer kills someone, he is to be put to death in front of two witnesses, said Butte businessman Bernard Ferch, adding that the legal system should do away with its lengthy appeals process.

“Read the Bible. Understand the Word, and do what God commands us as Christians,” Ferch said, adding that the Bible also says gays and lesbians should be “put to death.”

Retired Attorney Doug Nulle said a life sentence does not guarantee the incarcerated stay that way.

“Sentencing laws can change,” Nulle said.

Dangerous inmates can harm other inmates and corrections staff while in prison, Nulle said. “Someone with a life sentence has nothing to lose by killing someone in prison.”

Sen. Dan McGee, R-Laurel, described how the legislature has wrestled with the death penalty issue for 12 years. A bill to eliminate the death penalty didn’t make it out of committee in the 2005 session.

McGee’s best friend, a police officer, was shot to death in Missoula in 1984.

The murder trial was lengthy and resulted in a hung jury because some on the jury didn’t believe in the death penalty, McGee said.

And since then, McGee said he has witnessed the man who murdered his friend repeatedly apply for parole.

“He has used our system, our money, to continually apply to be released,” McGee said. “At what point do we say a person has reached that point at which society says you don’t have a right to be here?”

McGee said he favors the death penalty, but plans to vote for the bill in committee because the issue deserves a debate on the Senate floor.