Why spend $300,000 for insurance if we can simply choose to never need it?

A couple of weeks ago the Guadalupe County Commissioners Court voted to spend $300,000 of taxpayer money wastefully. Guadalupe County hasn’t had a death penalty case in over 30 years yet they approved an inter-local agreement with Lubbock County to provide public defenders in death penalty cases, essentially an insurance policy.

Guadalupe County need never have a death penalty case as the District Attorney can simply choose to ask for life in prison without the possibility of parole and save the people of this county the $300,000 insurance premium.

Whatever you think about the justifiability of the death penalty you should remember two things. It costs about four times as much to execute someone as it does to put them in prison for life due to the appeals and other legal fees. There’s every reason to believe that not only did Texas kill an innocent man when Cameron Todd Willingham was executed by lethal injection but as we now know there was no crime committed at all because the fire that killed his children was accidental and not arson.

Guadalupe County should never have a death penalty case and if we don’t then we have no reason to spend $300,000 of the citizen’s money. Call your County Commissioner and Judge Mike Wiggins and tell them how you feel.