- NOVEMBER 27, 2001:

FLORIDA: Save Money by Halting Executions, Florida Urged

After years of unsuccessful attempts to scrap Florida's death penalty by appealing to voters' hearts, opponents of capital punishment turned their focus on Tuesday to voters' pocketbooks.

Putting killers to death is even more expensive than locking them up for life without parole, death penalty opponents told lawmakers during a Florida House of Representatives hearing on ways to cut $1.3 billion from the budget of the cash-strapped state.

Dropping the death penalty would save Florida taxpayers $51 million a year without letting convicted murderers off the hook, members of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said.

They based the figure on the hours spent by state-appointed attorneys dealing with death sentences, more than half of which have been overturned by appellate courts. Florida leads the nation in the number of death row cases reversed.

"If the death penalty were run like a business, we would shut it down," group director Abe Bonowitz said. "It's not cost effective. In fact, it is a drain on funds and has no positive benefit to anybody."

Republican House Speaker Tom Feeney, an ardent supporter of the death penalty, said the group's argument may be fiscally sound but had not changed his mind.

"It's the most attractive argument for repealing the death penalty I've heard, though I disagree with the way in which it was put forth," Feeney said. "I wish he (Bonowitz) would have put it into a budget amendment."

While the death penalty opponents testified to lawmakers, Bonowitz briefly disrupted the hearing by brandishing a sign that read "Florida Can't Afford the Death Penalty," and shouting his opposition from the House gallery.

Lawmakers reacted by taking a scheduled recess and House security officers warned Bonowitz to avoid future outbursts.

Polls show Florida voters overwhelmingly support capital punishment for murderers. Florida switched its method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection last year after a series of gory executions in the electric chair.

In one case, the condemned man's head caught fire, prompting concerns that using the electric chair could violate the U.S. constitutional prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment."

The group's critique came a week after Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed death warrants for 3 murderers, one of whom has been on death row since 1972.