The U.S. capital appeals process is a broken and costly system that keeps both the families of murdered victims and the convicted waiting too long for justice.
Last week, Oklahoma executed its fourth inmate this year.
Anthony Rozelle Banks died by lethal injection for the 1979 murder of 25-year-old Sun I. "Kim" Travis, who was abducted from her apartment near the University of Tulsa and murdered by Banks.
The case later became one of the first in Tulsa County to use DNA evidence, which linked Banks, already in prison serving time for another murder, to the crime.
As he lay on a gurney awaiting lethal injection, even Banks admitted his execution was "justified."
On this one issue, we agree with Banks.
Yet it took him 14 years to get those words out - the time it took for his conviction to wend its way through the state and federal appeals process.
The length of time is not atypical.
The lengthy period it takes to process capital appeals is diluting the deterrent effect of having the death penalty in the first place - look at the number of people sent to death row - and they keep arriving.
The costs of prosecuting capital cases - far more expensive than noncapital murder cases, along with the cost of appeals, have become staggering.
The difference between a death-penalty case versus a life-without-parole case can be as much as a half million dollars.
Since 2007, six states, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and New Mexico have abolished their death penalty statutes.
Citizens in those states did so for economic and ethical reasons.
Many argue that the death penalty is unfairly and arbitrarily applied and plagued by racial and economic disparities.
Wealthy people, charged with capital murder, are rarely executed.
There also is concern that the rate of error in convictions is too high.
But death penalty repeal efforts have not gained traction in Oklahoma and we don't expect they will any time soon.
The state executes more inmates per capita than any other state with the death penalty, and most Oklahomans are comfortable with that.
Many Oklahomans must be frustrated, if not enraged, about the cost of appeals as well as time it takes for victims' families to see justice done.
In a large number of those cases, taxpayers are funding the costs of the defense, the prosecution, the courts and the care and feeding of the inmate throughout the process.
An inmate sitting in a cell awaiting court appeals isn't likely to commit more heinous crimes against innocent members of the public.
But logic says that the longer it takes for punishment to take place, the less likely it is to have a deterrent effect.
In 1996, Congress passed a law limiting the number of habeas appeals inmates can pursue, yet appeals still take years.
Death penalty issues are complex and full of emotional and ethical issues.
Inmates are entitled to justice - no one wants an innocent person executed - but victims' families and society at large also deserve justice.
How long must family members watch the same issues argued and reargued, as the process becomes less and less about the crime and guilt and more and more about technicalities?
These issues need attention in order to have a system with credibility, a punishment that is a deterrent and a system where justice is served in a timely and fair fashion.
In the end, there must be some kind of balance, which is what the current system is sorely lacking.
Original Print Headline: Death penalty appeals
Editorials
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