Sharp opposition raised to Gov.'s death penalty moratorium

By: Jesse Knutson HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Gov. Tom Wolf announced a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania Friday, citing a flawed system that has proven to be ineffective, unjust, and expensive. The moratorium will keep all 186 Pennsylvania death row inmates from being executed, but will not remove anyone from death row or prevent the legal system from issuing the death penalty as a verdict. Wolf said the moratorium will remain in place at least until a report is released by a special commission investigating the death penalty system. One of the members of the commission, Sen. Daylin Leach, supports Wolf's decision to bring executions to a stop. "At a certain point, when a policy isn't working, it's time to change the policy," Leach said. Leach announced Friday he was re-introducing a bill to abolish the death penalty in Pennsylvania, stating not only could an innocent person be executed, but the judicial process costs too much money, approximately $3 million per death penalty case. "Over the course of hundreds of death penalty cases in Pennsylvania, we've spent billions of dollars and have not executed anyone who didn't ask to be executed in 53 years," Leach said. While some support the governor's decision, many others don't, including local district attorneys. "Gov. Wolf, who doesn't like the law, decided to take it into his own hands today," Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said. "We're going to stand up against that." Multiple district attorneys in the state plan to fight Wolf's moratorium in court. "You're seeing the law be made up as we go along, which we just can't have," Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico said. "The way this system works is not that you get elected governor and you get to decide which laws you like and which laws you don't. The legislature makes the laws," Freed said. Some law enforcement officials are speaking out against the governor's decision as well. "If the death penalty was what was awarded by the jury, that should be done," Joe Kovel, president of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, said. Kovel said the PSTA believes the moratorium is a mistake, and alleged criminals like Eric Frein who allegedly shot and killed a state police corporal and injured another trooper should face the death penalty if it is awarded by the jury. "You can't put a cost value on justice. Does it take time? Does it take money? Absolutely, but that is a result of the justice system and the way that it's set up to work, and it does work," Kovel said. No one has been executed in Pennsylvania since 1999.