What is the problem with the prosecutor’s office? Maybe running for office????? It makes no sense to waste this much money on this peice of trash.

Death sentence? This guy is majorly mentally ill - very psychotic. This was pretty clear even to his last hostage. Clearly society needs to be protected from him, but death? Wow is this country cruel.

This is an example of our judicial system NOT working. At some point, financial issues MUST come into play. This man obviously deserves to never spend another day of his life out of prison, including fieldtrips to the court house etc. It is unbelievable that pride (and we all know that is what this is) superceeds wisdom. 4 million….this money should have been spent in a wiser fashion on other judicial issues.

So what else is new?
The legal system has been milking the taxpayers so long its got whiskers. Its like armed robbery with out the gun and you need a Law Degree to play the game.

Totally disgusted in California

The death penalty is outdated if not downright antiquated. Taking a person’s life is never right, and it make’s Americans look like we’re out for blood. Mass murderers and serial killers should be studied intensely and given life without parole. The death penalty is not punishment, it is vengeance, a vain vengeance at that. It is also a vengeance that makes for a harder conviction, not to mention the fact that it can’t be reversed if new evidence is later obtained to show the innocence of a convict. If one innocent man has died, in my opinion, the whole death penalty system is wrong. Better for thousands if not millions of murderers face life in prison instead of death than one innocent man to go to his death. I don’t care who a man killed, killing is wrong no matter who or how many dies. The death penalty merely shows that we can be just as barbaric as the killers in our country. We need to take the moral high ground and abolish the death penalty.

Our perfect Judicial system at work!!!

Boy isn’t it terrific to have such high minded officials in government to waste the taxpayers money. I wonder how the good citizens in the California community feel about the millions wasted by the sherrif pursuing Michael Jackson. Fine if they had a case, but they had no case. All the money was wasted. Once the high minded moralists and justice seekers take hold, the only limit to the money they will spend, is how much there is. As George Marshal then owner of the Redskins described his new coach, George Allen: “I gave him and unlimited budget and he exceeded it in three weeks”.

I need to begin with an example. How much would research cost on a drug that would be administered to thousands but was not allowed to kill one single person? Plenty. The same logic is being applied to our court systems. There are a thousand variables to consider in a case like this concerning protecting the rights of both the accused and the victims. The court is moving (has moved) to a policy of avoiding any and all errors. You want court cases with zero mistakes to come back and haunt you? This is the cost.
We as a people, and the media, have created this cost by not being tolerant or allowing any room for error in the judgements of those people involved in these processes. You want perfect? Perfect costs a bunch of money in any profession.

Money should not be what decided Brian Nichols fate. He was already locked up behind bars when he managed to escape and kill four people. He is a threat to everyone he comes into contact with, and the evidence is clear that life is worth nothing to him. He killed people who work everyday to make our community safer, to simply say that the the effort to see that he does not kill more such people because of the monetary costs is an insult to their sacrifice.

I live in Atlanta, and this has to be the dumbest approach to law I’ve seen. I think the DA Paul Howard should have stated the State’s position outright. Jusge Fuller (Former), was a bit over protective of Mr. Nichols rights and has allowed a boatload of shenanagins from the defense. Mr. Nichols is caught on tape, eyewitnesses, etc., and has continued to attempt escape and other misconduct. The State should not be held hostage by his actions. His defense counsel cannot continue to expect payment for delays and other maneuvering, the next item will be a change of venue. Screw it. Try him, sentence him, and open it up to who will provide the needle or throw the swtich. He has played the system and frankly the citizens of this state have drawn tired of all this. Mr. Howard, I think your tenure is over.

although i am a believer in the death penalty, you can only kill someone once — not once for every victim.
life is a much worse punishment. it just makes you wish you were dead every day.
brian nichols must have had some small amount of good in him at the end — or perhaps good that was in him at the beginning if you look at the total picture of those horrifying hours
if there is a soul to be salvaged inside him, it will have time to happen.
if there is not, then he will have every second, every minute, every hour for the next …… 40? years to think about how his own actions got him there.

Let me get this straight.
A cold-blooded murderer who during an escape kidnapped someone is being put on hold because of finance.

This is beyond sad and pathetic. I am sorry family of the victims but we do not have enough money to prosecute this suspect.

We now have to let criminals go who show no remorse or even feel they should be punished but, because it would cost the state more than it can afford we can no longer prosecute.

I say let them all go we cannot afford grafts from the legislators and judicial system and go after criminals as well.

The budget can only be stretched so far.

Please, How inane.

Dear Jamie, I agree that Wall Street needed cleaned up, however, Spitzer was like Nifong. Many innocent prople suffered as a result of his antics. Even you should agree with that. There are innocent people on Wall Street. And NO. I’m not a stock broker, just a housewife in Florida.

Our justice system is so broken. This is absurd and a disgrace.

I hope that during these tough economic times that all entities of our government, using tax payer dollars, will use simple common sense about how to best serve the interests of the people. Government sometimes acts like it has a “money tree” we the tax payers. Cost vs. benefit !! We don’t need to see a man executed when a plea deal protects society from him by a life prison sentence.
We are heading into really tough economic times. Teachers are being laid off, there will be cuts in all government spending as less tax revenue is available. This is a time for all government spending to be very prudent. Use the dollars wisely!!!!

If he has admitted he is guilty under one circumstance “life in prison” then how can he not be guilty for the death penalty.

Stop babying the con’s and get back to common sense. Make it hard on the criminals and they will stop being so hard on the taxpayers.

I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for the families of the victims killed. But pursuing the death sentence for this man is not going to bring their loved ones back….If he is willing to plead guilty and will spend the rest of his natural life in prison….shouldn’t that be sufficient?

If he has agreed to spend the rest of his sad pathetic life behind bars, why are taxpayers required to pay this huge expense?

Are we really still killing people? How is it okay to play “god” by executing criminals but it is not okay to play “god” by increasing stem cell research? Silly republicans!

“authorities must refocus their efforts on maintaining the integrity of the judicial system concerning indigent murder defendants.”

So does this mean that beacause a person is indigent they are not entitled to a fair trial due to the expense of prosecuting them or does it mean that victims families are not entitled to the fullest prosecution of the defendant due to availabilty of funds? I do not recall the constitution providing for the integrity of the judicial system.

As a resident of Atlanta, I feel it is well worth the money to make him face a jury of his peers. I am not for the death penality in anyway, however I feel that all major cases should go before a judge and jury and let a persons peers decide their fate. He took the fate of 4 people in his hands, so let him feel his lack of control over his life like they must have felt.

Kevin
Atlanta, GA.

So much for RIGHT to a speedy trial. This is what puts a whole new slant on the emphasis of that first little and all important word. CRIMINAL
Justice System.

Sitting in prison awaiting trial. Losing 3 years of one’s life in a system that lies and says; innocent until proven guilty.

Meanwhile the true example set forth, sitting in prison waiting for the system to get it’s stuff together, is the example that an innocent man doesn’t sit in prison awaiting the trial that determines whether he’s guilty and deserves to BE IN PRISON!

To all Americans,
The death penalty is morally necessary, for the most heinous cases, because life in American prisons is just not bad enough for some murders (Cesar Rodriguez and Nixmary Brown’s mother, for instance). To allow murderers to live (where life is our most precious possession) after they took the life from innocent victims (sometimes children!) is just morally wrong! I heard of a case this week where a man who murdered a teenage girl 30 years ago just passed away of a heart attack (in his 60’s) in a hospital! Why would he get that care after he robbed the girl of her life 30 years ago?
Those who take a life, in what courts deem heinous circumstances, should immediately lose their life as the only way to assure our civilization that we are indeed civilized enough to recognize the inherent fairness of this act. When we feed, clothe, house, and provide jailhouse television and exercise rooms to murderers while their victims rot in their coffins in the ground is so perverse as to make me disgusted with every single “no death penalty” coward in the whole world. Next case!
Richard Trifan

There are several sides to both arguments for and against the Death Penalty. Each has its own merits, and shortcomings. I have no problem with the idea of ending someones life when they have been found guilty of first-degree murder, they made the choice to end someones life, and ruin the lives of their families and close friends. If it was my family member who was killed, i would be happy to take their life myself.

The problem with it, is that we are not always correct in finding someone guilty of the crime. All too often, even when the ‘facts’ seem so obvious that it was them who performed the crime, we have found ourselves wrong, and sending innocent people to jail, or worse, to death. That’s the only reason why i am against the Death Penalty. Unfortunately, there is no concrete way to prove that a person is guilty, even with evidence, and witnesses, history will tell us otherwise.

The biggest problem i see with the costs involved, such as in this case, is just that… the costs. And where do the exorbitant costs come from, the millions of dollars? Well, greedy lawyers. They shouldn’t be allowed to profit over the pain and suffering of people, that in itself is just wrong in my opinion. They should be allowed to perform their job, and be paid appropriately, but obviously when you’re talking millions of dollars, like the salaries of professional sports players, the greed has gotten way out of hand, and is affecting everyone involved.

Unfortunately, we have come to a point where the planet and our resources are sorely taxed by the numbers of people ..increasing exponentially ..who are crowding out other species and adversely affecting the environment.
In this context, we can ill afford members of our overabundant species who “run amuck” nor can we afford diverting limited resources to maintaining them in prison. That we must think about this is sad but think about it we must since we are running out of time and space to change what our children and theirs will be sentenced to if we do not do something to change the direction we are going now…toward extinction

The problem I’ve got with “life in prison” is that, often, that’s not what it means. Even if a prisoner is given life in prison without parole, sooner or later, there’s always a chance some idiot will change the law and the prisoner may wind up slipping through a loophole. Add in the possibility of escape.

And, let’s look at this… Yes, they’re in prison. Prisoners are guaranteed three meals a day, a warm place to sleep out of the rain, and given access to television, books, magazines, a college education… Me, I’ve gotta WORK for all of that. Is it any wonder that prison’s no deterrent to criminal behavior any more?

Have any of you ever watched those prison documentaries on television? Gangs flourish. Prisoners murder each other and threaten the safety of prison personnel. They have no respect for life, not even their own. Often, they control people outside the prison, which inevitably leads to more violence, more arrests, more trials, more money wasted. My only complaint about the death penalty is that it is not evenly meted out, and too many appeals is what makes administration thereof so expensive.

What the heck is this world coming to!!!!!

How can you put a price tag on an innocent life. Opponents of the death penalty argue that because the death penalty does not prevent every murder or most murders therefore it is not effective. However if the death penalty only saves a few innocent lives then it is worth the cost. Saving the life of one potential innocent victim is worth the lives of hundreds of condemned murderers on death row. Some murderers will not take the extra step of executing their victims if they know that they might face the death penalty. Many murderers are cowards at heart. They have everything to gain by executing their victims and prevent identification and apprehension by doing so with no additional risk if there is no death penalty. Fifty percent of all murders go unsolve because a dead victim can’t identify the perpetrator. If there is no additional penalty for murder, many more innocent victims will die.

i think that it is so sad that these blood suckers would spend this much money on a man just to give him the death penalty. Do u know how many homeless and sick ppl we have in atlanta that could have put that money in to use and benefit from it. It just dont make sense everything is all about a dollar, so sad!!!

The U.S. has the most screwed up judicial system in the world.

The Death Penalty, a tough call, even in my times of despair, when I really think someone like Scott Peterson and Cutts (the police officer) who killed his girlfriend and unborn child, even when I think surely these people will get the needle/chair whatever it eludes us, we STILL go the loooooong expensive in prison you go and we taxpayers will foot your retirement bill til you die of natural causes even tho you killed TWO people~~neither woman Lacy or Debbie? were physical matches for their murderers, and they CAN NOT tell us the horror they suffered, tho we know they did suffer because they are dead, and we sit and we KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that Peterson and Scott were guilty and we just fill another bed in the prison. I’m beginning to worry about us. Wish the dead could rise for 5 min, but it’s not gonna happen, vengence???NO people it’s called justice…..

I am dumbfounded that this could be allowed to happen.

I believe in the death penalty - I do not believe on spending 70,000+ per year per prisoner to pay for incarceration!

This is one of the problems with our econmy!!!! The genreal public should be made aware of the exact cost to keep each prisoner for a year, and let everyone decide how this is to be handled.

The legal system is sick, and needs a revamp. something I don’t see happening, as we move toward an even more permissive society