COUNTY PROSECUTOR SAYS DEATH PENALTY WORKS

Disregarding findings of a recent national study, Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle says the death penalty works in Missouri.

"I defy anyone to show me an innocent person on death row in Missouri," Swingle said.

Swingle spoke about the death penalty at the Cape Girardeau Lion's Club meeting Wednesday.

Although Swingle agreed with the Columbia University law school study that errors by defense and prosecuting attorneys have been responsible for most successful appeals of death penalties, he thinks the number of mistakes is overstated.

Since Missouri reworked its death penalty statute and reinstated it in 1977, no innocent person has been executed, he said.

After a Georgia case was used by the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, states corrected their statutes.

Almost uniformly, states now separate cases with a possible death penalty into two hearings: to determine guilt and then if guilty, to determine sentencing.

Only a conviction for first-degree murder can bring a death penalty in Missouri, Swingle said. Along with that, at least one of 17 aggravating circumstances must be proven.

Three men from Cape Girardeau are among the 81 now on Missouri's death row, Swingle said.

Gary L. Roll, 47, was convicted in a triple murder in 1992 of a Cape Girardeau woman and her two sons. Along with two accomplices, he shot, stabbed and pistol whipped the three before stealing a small amount of marijuana and $215 in cash.

Roll has exhausted both the state and federal appeals process, and should have a date set for his execution this summer, the prosecutor said.

Andrew A. Lyons, 42, was also convicted of a triple murder in 1992. Lyons had shot his former girlfriend, their 11-month-old son and his former girlfriend's mother. He had told friends four days prior to the shootings that he wouldn't let another man have his ex-girlfriend, Swingle said.

Lyons' appeal is now with the state Supreme Court. As in most death penalty appeals, Lyons claims his defense attorney was incompetent, Swingle said.

The prosecutor expects Lyons to have exhausted all appeal possibilities within the next two years.

Russell E. Bucklew, 32, was convicted in the 1996 shooting death of a man who was seeing Bucklew's former girlfriend. Bucklew's case has been appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Part of death penalty reforms in recent years have limited federal appeals to one year after state appeals are completed, Swingle said.

Limitations also have forced federal appeals to be heard in the U.S. judicial district where the offender is being held. Prior to the change, inmates on death row could seek a federal judge for an appeal in any federal district court in hopes of locating a jurist with sympathies against the death penalty, Swingle said.

The prosecutor disagrees with those who say eliminating the death penalty would save money spent on attorneys' fees.

"There will be lawyers appealing whether the sentence is life in prison or the death penalty," he said. "It makes no difference."

However, considering that some death row inmates are in their 20s, and it costs about $20,000 a year for an inmate's room and board, the death penalty could save the state money, Swingle said.

"I can't believe it's not cheaper to give a lethal injection after four years than to have someone live in prison for 40," he said.