Charles M. Harris, JD Biography

"We have been sold a pig in the poke. If what we got is not totally defective, it is redundant and far less satisfactory than a comparable product which is efficient and cost effective. I am, of course, talking about the death penalty and why it should be abolished...My opposition is based on more practical grounds: First, the death penalty is not needed since the legislature adopted the life in prison without parole alternative. This was a wise action taken by the legislature but it has rendered death by execution redundant and the amount we spend on it wasted. Second, death by execution is excessively expensive...Over the last ten years, we have added an average of 11 people per year to our death row [in Florida]. They would fit much better in the general population of a high security prison at much less cost than on death row with its ever increasing population."