DOVER, Del. - Delaware law makers will soon decide yay-or-nay on the death penalty; a polarizing issue. Tuesday, legislators introduced a bill to repeal it, but today, law enforcers took to the streets in favor of the death penalty.
Police officers from across the First State stood together in support of the death penalty. "The Supreme Court has said that there are some crimes so bad for lack if a better way to put it, so heinous of a crime that death may be the only option for proper punishment in that individual, and I tend to agree with that," said Jeffrey Horvath, of the Lewes Police Department.
But legislators and community leaders want to stop what they see as a costly, and ineffective system. A Maryland study estimates the average death penalty trial costs $3 million compared to $1.1 million for a non-death penalty trial.
Thomas Brackin of the Delaware State Police Troopers Association feels "I don't feel the death penalty pro or con that you can narrow it down to an economic argument, I think it's purely a moral and a justice issue."
Ruth Ann Spicer, the mother of an officer who died on duty, says she'll continue to fight for justice for her son and others like him, confessing "we cannot talk to him, we cannot see him, we cannot feel him, and I do not feel that other families who are going to visit their loved ones in jail should have that opportunity."
The senate bill states 142 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 40 years, but the officers say none of those cases took place in Delaware.
Legislation to repeal the death penalty in the state is expected to go before the judiciary committee next week.
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