THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994 TAG: 9406150475
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: 940615 LENGTH: HIGH POINT
When David Lawson is gassed to death at 2 a.m. Wednesday, it will be just the sixth time in 10 years that North Carolina has used the death penalty.
{REST} Chief Justice James Exum has always been an opponent of capital punishment, even though he has upheld dozens of death sentences and wrote the opinions upholding the sentences of Lawson and John Gardner, whose 1992 execution was the most recent execution in the state.
``I think in many ways the death penalty is about the worst thing that a criminal justice system truly interested in enforcing the law and attacking crime can inflict on itself,'' Exum told the High Point Enterprise.
``It consumes an enormous amount of our resources, both in terms of money and personnel, just to have it. The question is whether all this time, all this energy and all these resources that we put into the death penalty is worth the difference between life and death. And I'm convinced that it's not.''
Between 40 and 50 percent of the state Supreme Court's time is now spent on hearing death cases, according to Exum. ``We could decide five or six other cases in the time it takes to decide on a death case, and that's being conservative.''
Exum pointed to a study last year by Duke University that found that it is more expensive for the state to have the death penalty, with its endless round of appeals and need to appoint lawyers for indigent defendants, than to have life imprisonment without parole.
In North Carolina, first-degree murder convictions that don't carry a death sentence earn life in prison, but defendants can apply for parole after 20 years. Gov. Jim Hunt submitted a bill during the special legislative session earlier this year to abolish the parole option, but the legislature amended the law only slightly.
Soon, lifers will be able to apply for release after 25 years.
Exum said that in reading trial transcripts, he has found many jurors who said they wouldn't vote for capital punishment if they believed the defendant would never get out of prison.
``I think public support for the death penalty is a mile wide and an inch deep,'' he said. ``I think if we could have a punishment of life imprisonment without possibility of parole - and mean it - a lot of the support for the death penalty would dissipate.
``The real question is whether we can continue to afford the death penalty.''
He also said it takes an emotional toll on all involved, especially victims' families, to see a process that doesn't appear to end. Carolyn Kluttz, the sister of the man David Lawson killed, agreed. She said earlier this year that she would like to see a life-imprisonment law.
``It's just pathetic that we have to go through 14 years of this,'' she said. ``It's very cruel. I can't function like this. It's tearing us all apart.''
Exum said the state Supreme Court has streamlined its appeals process in recent years to limit the amount of time it takes for the court to review a case and issue a decision.
But still, they say, it is inevitable that the court will find errors in cases that had a significant impact on the trial, and it will have to either order a new trial or a new sentencing phase.
According to the court's clerk, it has heard 33 death cases since 1991. In 13 instances, it found no errors and upheld all portions of the case; in 10, it found errors that required new trials; and in another 10, it found errors that required new sentencing hearings.
{KEYWORDS} CAPITAL PUNISHMENT DEATH PENALTY by CNB