死刑的代價：考量成本問題 加州民眾要求廢死

策劃、編譯■李威撰美國下週舉行總統大選，加州將同時舉辦多項公投，其中尤以廢死公投最引人矚目。有別於過往的道德訴求，在財政狀況普遍拮据的今天，廢死論者加入了經濟成本的考量。儘管在死刑議題上，加州經常傾向保守立場，但這次不少民眾尚未表態，值得進一步觀察。被判謀殺的史坦基維茲，關在死牢逾30載，他沒有將活命的希望寄託在本月加州即將舉行的廢死公投。他知道，即使選民否決法案，他也許還是不會死。（註）「他們不能宰了我，因為制度是如此的糟糕混亂。」史坦基維茲是全加州關最久的死囚，他在聖昆丁州立監獄接受《路透》採訪，他說：「死刑是個笑話。」現年54歲的史坦基維茲，是加州726名死囚之一。年少時，在藥物及酒精的催化下，挾武力劫持一輛汽車，過程中殺害了一名婦女，因此20歲就進了死牢。加州死刑犯人數占全美1／4，過去6年從未執行死刑。▲因謀殺而被判死刑的魯茲（Albert Ruiz）走在加州聖昆汀監獄內的長廊上，圖攝於2012年6月8日。（圖文／路透）一名聯邦法官2006年要求加州停止所有死刑。這名法官認為，混合3種藥物的死亡注射，會讓囚犯在死前經受過度疼痛。僅管加州修改了執行方式，但死刑卻再也沒有執行過。美國許多州的輿論不再支持死刑。過去10年，有5個州廢除死刑。目前17個州及哥倫比亞特區都禁止死刑。改判終身監禁能減少支出在加州推動廢死運動的支持者，不再聚焦於道德理由，而是側重在成本問題。他們表示，強制上訴要耗費數十年的光陰，這種制度對財政困窘的加州而言，不啻是一筆鉅額花費。罪惡滔天的殺人犯若能改判終身監禁，可省下無以數計的經費。民調顯示，這次公投將是一場鏖戰（11月6日美國總統大選當天，加州將同步舉行11項公投，死刑公投即為其中之一）。今年9月，南加大的杜恩斯菲學院與《洛杉磯時報》公布一份針對1,504人所做的民調，加州民眾有51％反對廢除死刑，僅38％支持廢除，其餘立場未定。第9巡迴上訴法院資深法官阿拉貢與羅約拉法學院法律系助理教授密契爾在2011年所做的一份研究顯示，1978年至今，死刑已花掉加州約40億美元。報告指稱，這是全美「最貴最沒效率」的死刑制度。根據獨立預算監督機構「立法分析師辦公室」表示，廢除死刑剛開始能幫助加州1年省下1億美元，之後1年將增加至1.3億美元。伍德福告訴《路透》：「這是一項失敗的公共政策，浪費過多的公帑，而且這是個幻象，我們過去6年1次都沒有執行。」伍德福是聖昆丁的前任典獄長，目前是廢死陣營的旗手。上訴流程漫長 造成鉅額花費死刑成本的增加，與強制上訴及能勝任死刑案件的公共律師不足有關，這意味著囚犯要花上數十年的時間才能走完制度。伍德福表示，被判死刑的囚犯平均要等上5年，才能輪到律師並進入自動上訴至加州最高法院的程序，這是州法的強制規定。除此之外，律師處理聯邦人身保護令的訴願，要再花上12年的時間。聯邦人身保護令是一項正式請求，聯邦法院會檢視訴願人監禁的合法性。伍德福表示，光是死刑上訴案件，就占去加州最高法院1／3的時間。（編按：聯邦人身保護令是刑事訴訟的救濟辦法之一，被告可聲稱憲法保障的權利受到侵犯，要求聯邦法院針對拘禁原因的合法性進行審查。）史坦基維茲在死牢待了34年，是44名等待時間超過30年的獄犯之一。1978年被判罪的史坦基維茲相信，由於他的精神能力在審判過程當中未被評估，所以加州最高法院會扭轉量刑。後來，弗瑞斯諾郡法庭在1983年進行重審，但判決結果相同。該審判隨後又自動上訴至加州高等法院，但根據法院紀錄，判決及量刑的變更在1990年被駁回。聯邦人身保護令的上訴則是在1994年首次展開。史坦基維茲已窮盡所有的上訴，包括精神能力的訊問、前法律顧問是否勝任、程序以及對證據力的質疑等等。加州數百名死刑犯，只有13人用盡一切上訴管道，現在只等著死刑的執行。阿拉貢及密契爾的報告指出，2050年以前，估計加州的死刑監獄還會多增加740人，有超過5百名死囚會因為年紀或其他因素，在死刑執行前就先行死去。獄方官員表示，1978年以來，加州死刑犯監獄已有21人自殺、57人死於自然因素。史坦基維茲的辯護律師，把上訴的重心放在他的智能及虐童的問題上。根據法庭的資料顯示，當他還在母親子宮內，就受到酒精影響，後由因為母親施暴於他，因此6歲離開家庭，前前後後待過幾家收容中心，他在裡面深感不安，且遭到他人的虐待。制度殘忍恐違憲一獨立委員會在2008年表示，加州的死刑制度已無法運作，並提出警告，如果法律顧問的委任及上訴過程所造成的制度性耽擱無法解決，加州的死刑制度將被宣布為殘忍異常的刑罰，最終將被視為違憲而遭廢除。委員會指出，將無假釋的無期徒刑作為最極致的刑罰，1年只要花費1,150萬美元，遠低於每年要花費1.37億美元的死刑，而根據阿拉貢及密契爾的報告，死刑每年的花費要1.44億美元。加州矯治局表示，每關押1名犯人，1年的開銷是5萬5,500美元。（路透Reuters）●註：據10月29日的最新消息，美國第九巡迴法院作出裁定，史坦基維茲可免除死刑，改判不得假釋的終身監禁。法官認為當初辯護律師在量刑階段，未能適當提出可減輕判刑的證據。Convicted murderer Douglas Stankewitz, who has spent more than three decades on death row, isn't pinning his hopes of survival on a referendum next month to abolish the death penalty in California - he knows that even if voters reject the measure, he may never be executed."They can't kill me because the system is messed up so bad," Stankewitz, California's longest-serving death row （1） inmate, told Reuters in an interview at San Quentin State Prison. "The death penalty is a joke."Stankewitz, a 54-year-old who arrived on death row at age 20 for killing a woman during a drug- and alcohol-fueled carjacking, is one of 726 inmates on death row in California. The state hosts nearly a quarter of the nation's condemned （2） prisoners but has executed none in the last six years.A federal judge halted all California executions in 2006, saying a three-drug lethal injection protocol risked causing inmates too much pain and suffering before death. California revised its protocol, but executions have not resumed.Public opinion in many states has been shifting away from the death penalty, with five states abolishing capital （3） punishment over the past decade. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia do not allow the death penalty.In California, proponents of repealing the death penalty are basing their campaign not so much on moral grounds, but rather on the question of cost. They say the system, with mandated appeals that can take decades, costs so much that the financially troubled state could save hundreds of millions of dollars by instead jailing the worst killers for life.Polls show the referendum - one of 11 ballot measures facing Californians on the same day as the presidential election, November 6 - faces an uphill fight. A majority of Californians, 51 percent, oppose abolishing capital punishment, according to a September USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of 1,504 people. Just 38 percent backed repeal, while the rest were undecided.A 2011 study by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals senior judge Arthur Alarcón and Paula Mitchell, an adjunct law professor at Loyola Law School, said the death penalty has cost the state roughly $4 billion since 1978. It called California's capital punishment system "the most expensive and least effective" in the nation.An independent budget watchdog, the Legislative Analyst's Office, has said repealing the death penalty could initially save the state $100 million a year, later growing to $130 million a year."It is a failed public policy that wastes so much public money. And it is an illusion. We haven't had an execution in over six years," Jeanne Woodford, a former San Quentin warden and a leading advocate of death penalty repeal, told Reuters.Death penalty costs are driven by mandated appeals and a shortage of public lawyers qualified to handle capital cases, which means inmates （4） can wait decades to make their way through the system.Condemned inmates wait an average of five years to be given lawyers for an automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court, which is mandated by state law, Woodford said, and then another 12 years for an attorney to handle an automatic federal habeas petition, which is a formal request for a federal court to examine the legality of the petitioner's imprisonment. The California Supreme Court spends a third of its time on death penalty appeals alone, she said.Stankewitz, who has been on death row for 34 years, is among 44 inmates who have spent three decades. Convicted in 1978, Stankewitz had his conviction and sentence reversed by the state Supreme Court because his mental competence to stand trial had not been evaluated. He was then re-tried and re-convicted by a Fresno County court in 1983.That trial spurred another automatic appeal to California's top court, which in 1990 declined to alter his conviction or sentence, according to court records. His first federal habeas appeal was filed in 1994. His appeals have run the gamut from questions over his own mental competence to the competence of his previous legal counsel and procedural and evidentiary complaints.Of the state's hundreds of death row inmates, just 13 have exhausted their appeals and are awaiting execution.By 2050, California is projected to have sent 740 more inmates to death row, and more than 500 death row inmates will have died of old age or other causes before they can be executed, Alarcn and Mitchell said in their study. Twenty-one inmates have committed suicide on California's death row since 1978, and 57 have died of natural causes, prison officials said.Stankewitz's defense attorneys have largely based their appeals on questions about his intellect and childhood abuse. He suffered alcohol exposure in the womb, was removed from his home at age 6 after his mother beat him and bounced between foster care facilities where he was severely troubled and abused, court documents show.An independent commission said in 2008 that the state's death penalty system was dysfunctional and warned that, if nothing were done to reverse structural delays in the appointment of counsel and appeals, the application of capital punishment in California could be declared cruel and unusual punishment （5） and, ultimately, struck down as unconstitutional.It said that a system with life without paroele as the top punishment would cost only $11.5 million a year, well under the $137 million it pegs as the annual cost of capital punishment. The Alarcn-Mitchell report puts the cost of having the death penalty at $144 million a year. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said housing an inmate costs around $55,500 annually per prisoner.（Reuters）關鍵字詞1. death row (a.) 囚禁死刑犯的牢房2. condemned (a.) 死囚的3. capital (a.) 可處死刑的4. inmate (n.) 囚犯5. cruel and unusual punishment(n.) 殘忍異常的刑罰（法律用詞）