Panel hears sides on death penalty

Ex-death-row inmate testifies

Ray Krone of Arizona, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1992, and sentenced to death, gestures as he speaks  against the death penalty during a meeting of Senate Committee on Judiciary at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
Ray Krone of Arizona, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1992, and sentenced to death, gestures as he speaks against the death penalty during a meeting of Senate Committee on Judiciary at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

— Ray Krone spent 10 years, three months and eight days in prison and was nearly put to death for a murder he did not commit, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Krone was convicted in Arizona in 1992 and sentenced to death for killing Kim Ancona, a Phoenix barmaid. He was exonerated after DNA found on the victim’s body was linked to a different person, he said.

“Anything that is of human nature, it is ... fallible. We have a chance to correct [wrongful convictions] when there’s still a person there,” Krone said.

Krone’s testimony was part of more than an hour of discussion on the death penalty, which also featured input from university professors, prosecutors and the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock.

The hearing was held in response to last year’s state Supreme Court ruling that found parts of the capital-punishment statute unconstitutional.

No bills have been filed to eliminate the death penalty, but Gov. Mike Beebe has said he would sign such a bill if it came across his desk.

Laurent Sacharoff, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, told the committee that it costs less to imprison a murderer for life than to put him to death; legal fees make it astronomically expensive to execute a prisoner.

Sacharoff said a North Carolina study on the death penalty showed that the death penalty cost that state about $11 million a year, and other studies showed a single deathrow case could cost more than $1 million.

Didi Sallings, the director of the Public Defender Commission, said the cost of the death penalty in Arkansas includes paying a special team of legal experts to guide the case from conviction to execution. A death-penalty case in the state could sometimes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars between the trial and postconviction appeals, she said.

Sallings said it’s costly and time-consuming for publicdefenders to prepare for a capital-murder trial - even if the prosecutor offers a plea agreement that spares the defendant’s life.

It’s not uncommon for prosecutors and defense attorneys to cut a deal at the last minute.

“We go to trial pretty often with death on the table,” Sallings said.

Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock told the committee that he has ministered to the families of homicide victims and also to those on death row. The bishop officiated over funerals after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and also escorted a convicted murderer to his place of execution in 1996.

Taylor said he believes in the sanctity of human life and that capital punishment cannot be justified in modern society.

“When the state kills, it is premeditated and coldblooded,” Taylor said.

Several prosecutors and the families of murder victims also spoke in support of the death penalty, both as a punishment and a negotiating tool.

Tom Tatum II, the prosecuting attorney for the 15th Judicial District, said the death penalty is an “effective tool” in negotiating guilty pleas with defendants in capital-murder cases. He said removing the death penalty as an option would mean defendants would not agree to pleas of life in prison because “no one is going to plea to the maximum.”

“There’s no incentive on the part of the criminal defendant to enter that plea,” Tatum said.

Donald Schmidt Sr., the father of a Trumann police officer who was shot and killed in April 2011, told the committee that life in prison without parole is not an acceptable alternative to the death penalty.

Schmidt said Jerry Lard, who was convicted of the murder of his son, Jonathan Schmidt, “tried, convicted and executed” his son and he should not be allowed to have his sentence commuted.

“Jerry Lard deserves the death penalty, and I hope to God the state of Arkansas carries it out,” Schmidt said.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/31/2013

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