BILL TRADES EXECUTION FOR ORGAN DONATIONS

Death-row inmates could get their sentences commuted to life in prison in exchange for donating a kidney or bone marrow under legislation before the Missouri General Assembly.

Cape Girardeau resident Sarah Froemsdorf doesn't like the idea. She has waited 13 years for her husband's killer to be executed.

Her husband, James, was a Missouri state trooper who was fatally shot March 2, 1985, during a traffic stop on Interstate 55 in Perry County.

His killer, Jerome Mallett of St. Louis, remains on death row.

Cape Girardeau Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle doesn't like the life-for-a-life measure either. "I think the idea is goofy," he said.

"I think it misunderstands the whole point of the death penalty, which is to impose the ultimate punishment for the ultimate crime," he said.

"This is not a situation where you want the state of Missouri to swap body parts for justice," said Swingle.

"The whole thing is grotesque and absurd," he said.

The St. Louis-based Kidney Foundation of Eastern Missouri and Metro East opposes the idea, too.

State Rep. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, introduced the life-for-a-life bill.

Graham said the legislation is the first of its kind in the nation.

Under the bill, a convicted murderer on death row could request a hearing to be accepted into the life-for-a-life program. The prisoner would have to make the request within two years after being convicted of the crime.

Graham said it would be a voluntary program and not an automatic right of the condemned.

After the request is made, the sentencing judge would hold a hearing. The victim's family could testify or have its prior testimony entered into the record.

The judge would decide whether to accept the prisoner's request.

Froemsdorf said her three daughters have kidney disorders. "The potential for one of them needing a kidney transplant is very great," she said.

But Froemsdorf said she wouldn't want any of her daughters to receive a kidney transplant from Mallett or any other death-row inmate.

She said Mallett was a drug addict.

Froemsdorf wants Mallett executed. "I think it is time," she said.

Under Graham's bill, death-row inmates would have to meet certain conditions before their sentences would be commuted to life in prison.

To qualify for a life sentence, inmates would have to give up all further rights of appeal, agree to donate a kidney or bone marrow for transplant on request and take a physical examination to determine if they have a healthy kidney or bone marrow for transplanting.

Graham said not every death-row inmate would apply for the program, and many won't pass the medical test.

Of the 87 prisoners on death row in Missouri, perhaps six or seven would qualify medically, Graham said.

"But if we are able to save six or seven innocent lives through this donation and save taxpayers' money, I think we may be doing extra good for society," Graham said.

In Missouri, inmates spend an average of 10.5 years on death row before they are executed, Graham said. The national average is 14 years.

When all the costly court appeals are taken into account, it costs more to execute prisoners than it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives, Graham said.

"We usually pay the costs of the public defender for the inmate, the attorney general for the state, the judges and court costs, as well as incarceration for more than a decade," Graham said.

He said there is a great need for kidneys and bone marrow for transplants.

Nationwide, some 37,000 people were in need of kidney transplants as of last October, said Maureen Herrmann, executive director of the Kidney Foundation office in St. Louis.

"In our region, 1,600 people were on a waiting list for a kidney transplant," she said.

Still, she said her organization and those of every other organ-donor group in the nation refuse organ donations from prisoners because of the significant risk of transmittable diseases.

Prisoners often have been intravenous drug users, Herrmann said.

She said lawmakers should encourage organ donation by signing the donor cards on the back of their driver's licenses.