Davis / 2 Senator Lau

S.W._____

A BILL
To start a program which promotes all individuals sentenced with death penalty to work within prison
confines to save enough money for an appeal before a trial by jury.
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE
This act may be cited as the Fair Price for Freedom Act of 2015.
SECTION 2. FINDINGS
Congress hereby finds and declares that,
1) Maintaining each death row inmate costs taxpayers about $90,000 annually.
2) There are countless cases in many states throughout the South that indicate blatant racial discrimination
taking place in the courtroom.
3) In the past few decades a surge of hundreds of exonerations of innocent criminal defendants has drawn
attention to the problem of erroneous conviction, and led to a spate of reforms in criminal investigation and
adjudication.
4) The burden of these costs is beared by local governments, often diverting precious resources not only
from police, but from health care, infrastructure, and education, or forcing counties to borrow money or
raise taxes.
5) The endless appeals and required additional procedures clog our court system.
SECTION 3. STATUTORY LANGUAGE
A) Individuals proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt and sentenced with capital punishment must remain
in prison under maximum security with no possibility of parole. During their sentence, such individual will
be given different labor tasks deemed applicable to that inmate. These jobs consist of product
manufacturing under Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (UNICOR), including stab vests, gun cases, duty belts,
firearm targets, and lifelike tactical training sets that mimic villages or terrains where soldiers are sent into
during combat, work in agricultural fields, Braille book publishing under the National Prison Braille
Network, and various duties in maintaining the cleanliness of prison complex. Each task pays $2.80 per
hour and prisoners must work 8 hours per day, 6 days a week. Each prisoner must portray model citizen
behavior, may only hold one job at a time, and trading is not permitted unless individual cannot complete
requirements of job completely and competently, individual is presenting health issues as a result of job, or
abuse or tension arises from association with other inmates. Each morning, inmate will arrive to job at set
time, clock in with punching card and at the end of the day will clock out, recording all earnings on card.
At the end of the month an appointed officer will add up all earnings and inform inmates. Each inmate
must raise a minimum of $200,000 in order to be qualified for retrial.
B) Under the United States Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Prison will see to it that federal
offenders receive the necessary materials for jobs, provide proper instructions with protocol, and include
product check to ensure prisoners work is reliable. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts
will enforce such procedures, ensure such individuals receive a fair trial with proper representation,
calculate costs for individual to appeal before court and the difference to meet required cost of procedure,
and ensure no cheating or favoritism arises within inmates and government workers.
C) Should new, concrete information come into light supporting the innocence of such individual, the
inmate may be granted an appeal in court with a fair trial by jury without saving at least $200,000. If
proven guilty again, the inmate will serve out the rest of his or her sentence in prison without parole and
will continue working without receiving pay.
The death penalty has no place in the 21st century, announces United Nations Secretary-General

Ban Ki-moon. This inhumane practice has remained ineffective in the United States for 40 years, since its
reinstatement in 1976. The great expenses spent on keeping inmates sentenced with the death penalty in
maximum security for years divert limited funds from being spent on prevention of crimes from occurring,
mental health treatment, and education and victim rehabilitation.
Each year, taxpayers bear the burden of paying for the maintenance of death row inmates, each
costing around $90,000. This hefty paycheck does not cover the expense of hiring defense attorneys,
experts and investigators paid to take the stand, and courtroom costs. On average, trials cost 2.8 to 3.5 times
more for death penalty cases than those not seeking capital punishment. It costs more than an additional $1
million to pursue the death penalty than not to seek it in an aggravated murder case. In order to reach the
required funds for expensive death penalty cases, thousands of correctional personnel and police officers
have been laid off nationwide. Of the $4.6 billion used to administer the death penalty, 42% ($1.94 billion)
has been siphoned on trials and pretrials costs. American citizens can be kept just as safe from convicted
killers by putting them in prison for life with no option for parole, while saving $184 million a year.
Although many may believe the death penalty is more cost-efficient than life in prison without the
possibility of parole, it has been proven to point the other way. Capital punishment trials require more time,
thus spending more money at every step of the way.
On top of the substantial price of sentencing capital punishment, implementing the death penalty
prevents the innocent wrongfully incarcerated from receiving a chance to escape the brutal punishment. In
the past few decades, 151 exonerations of innocent criminal defendants has drawn attention to the problem
of erroneous conviction, and led to a series of reforms in criminal investigation and resolution. Those that
have had their cases overturned believe it is out of pure luck, not because the system has proven to be
resourceful. Additionally, forensic analysts often cannot find enough evidence at the crime scene to make a
definitive conclusion and should enough be found, states often neglect to store evidence carefully. On a
more important note, the majority of wrongful convictions stems from amateur defense attorneys.
Alongside inadequate legal representation, perjured testimonies, mistaken eyewitnesses, and police
misconduct have been responsible for misplacing individuals behind bars. All these factors, factors that can
be controlled and prevented from going awry are not properly maintained by states and the federal
government.
Beyond the costly expenses directed for trial costs seeking death penalty and mistakes made in
court, capital punishment cases have wrongfully sentenced innocent colored victims to their deaths. Besides
unfair, biased judges, the corrupt system is setup to fail socioeconomically poor individuals. People of color
have accounted for a disproportionate 43 % of total executions since 1976 and 55 % of those currently
awaiting execution. A moratorium of the death penalty is necessary to address the blatant prejudice in our
application of the death penalty.Colored defenders are not receiving the same legal system as their white
counterparts because of racial profiling. The injustices in this country have incarcerated individuals based
on circumstantial evidence, often choosing to ignore the truth presented in front of them. Nearly 40 years
later, the United States is still facing the same issue; American history has proven time and again that the
death penalty has been unjustly administered whereby innocents have been killed by the state and on the
national level. State and federal courts shamelessly turn a blind eye to unfair representations,
misinterpretation and manipulation of evidence, and unequal opportunities for colored defendants to prove
their innocence due to overwhelming racial prejudice in the country.