10 years later, Anthony Sowell is still on death row and the taxpayer bill keeps rising
Appeal process drags on as the convicted serial killer tries to avoid the death chamber.
By Brian Duffy
The first victims were found in 2009, and Anthony Sowell was convicted and sentenced to death in 2011.
However, Sowell is not close to being put to death, and the tab for his continuous appeals continues to grow.
Families of the victims await justice and they’ll continue to wait according to Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Chris Schroeder, who says we are only about halfway through the appeal process.
“These people have waited 10 years now for justice for a guy who had no defense, he had no claim that he didn’t do it, no doubt about guilt or innocence,” Schroeder said.
Justice for the families of Sowell’s victims is the first priority, but this appeal process is also costing you, taxpayers, an incredible amount of money.
“We’re paying for the appellate process that goes on, over and over and over again successive rounds of appeals so it does add up over time,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder has heard the refrain that it would be cheaper to just put a convicted killer, like Sowell, in jail for life than to maneuver through the expensive death penalty appeal process.
He’s not so sure that is true however.
“I can’t give you a number on how much either of those things cost,” Schroeder said, “I think really the number one factor is the inmate’s medical issues, what kind of medical issues do they develop in prison because that can make their incarceration much more expensive over time.”
Sowell is not in ideal health, he’s had a pacemaker installed.
On Tuesday his lawyers will make the claim that Sowell had ineffective counsel at trial and that he should have had a scan that may have shown irregularities in his brain activity at the time of the murders.
As this process drags on Schroeder has heard from the families of the victims.
“They share my frustration and they mostly just have questions, wondering what is going on and why does it take so long and what’s this new appeal about,” Schroeder said.
No comments:
Post a Comment