CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: HARD TIME, HARD QUESTIONS ABOUND

Which murders rate execution? Which crimes rate incarceration - and for how
long?

Occasionally the answer's easy. For instance, premeditated murder of a
police officer is rightly regarded as the quickest ticket to death
row.

It was no surprise Monday when a Berkeley County jury sentenced Jesse
W. Sapp to death for killing S.C. Highway Patrol Cpl. Kenneth Jeffrey
Johnson, who had a glowing professional record, a loving family and
plenty of fine friends.

But what if Sapp had killed a less sterling fellow last summer? What
criteria must a murder meet to precipitate prosecutorial pursuit of a
death penalty in this state?

Ninth Circuit Solicitor Ralph Hoisington said Thursday that in South
Carolina, "aggravating circumstances" can make murder a capital crime.
He said two of those circumstances applied to Sapp -- the premeditated
murder of a law-enforcement officer and the commission of an act
endangering the lives of others besides the killer and the killed.

Also required, according to Hoisington, are "very, very solid proof of
guilt" and a "history and background of the defendant" consistent with
such a horrendous act.

Hoisington added that one other criterion can be "very subjective and
kind of dangerous territory" -- the depth of the loss inflicted by the
murder, explaining:

"The victim-impact statements are admissible in the penalty phase.
Right or wrong, the more substantial the victim is, the more
substantial the penalty can be."

And right or wrong, capital-punishment foes cite such victim-based
differentials in punishment as a death-penalty inequity.

So equalize it: Execute killers of the widely mourned and the widely
unmourned.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen -- or waiting for
Sapp to meet his deserved fate. Though America catches considerable
global heat over capital punishment, numerous obstacles block the path
to a death sentence in this country -- and even more obstacles block
timely implementation of that sentence.

Yet many Americans who abhor the ancient tradition of capital
punishment support life sentences for killers -- and long sentences
for other violent criminals.

Locking up bad guys is societal self-defense. Sure, deterrence and
rehabilitation are worthy goals. But immediate protection of the
public should take top priority.

When repeat offenders, after being released from prison, offend again,
understandable outrage ensues. If Sapp, whose pre-murder rap sheet
included convictions for possession with intent to distribute cocaine
and possession with intent to distribute marijuana, had still been in
jail for those crimes, he couldn't have killed Cpl. Johnson.

Still, how to maximize public safety while minimizing the probability
that young thugs will grow into adult thugs? Aren't many prisons
tantamount to criminal grad schools? And how to pay for incarcerating
a rising tide of convicts if the popular push for longer sentences
persists?

The Washington Post, citing a study by the nonprofit Sentencing Project,
reported Wednesday:

"U.S. prison and jail populations have mushroomed from 501,000 to 2
million people during the past two decades, by far the most among
industrialized nations. ... The number of inmates being released has
more than doubled since 1994, when it was 272,000, and there is no
agreement about how best to deal with the return of so many to their
old neighborhoods. Justice Department statistics show that more than
60 percent of former inmates are rearrested within three years of
release." This problem goes far beyond overcrowding at the Charleston
County Jail and underfunding of the S.C. Department of Corrections.
America now has more prisoners than farmers. About 625,000 ex-cons
will enter our midst this year -- at least for a while.

The hard-line urge to lock them all up and throw away the keys is hard
to resist. Some who yearn for a return of swift, stern Old West
"justice" join in on this refrain from the country hit "Beer For My
Horses," sung by Toby Keith and Willie Nelson (written by Toby Keith
and Scott Emerick):

We got too many gangsters doing dirty deeds

We've got too much corruption, too much crime in the
streets

It's time the long arm of the law put a few more in the
ground

Send 'em all to their maker and he'll settle 'em down

Only these days, putting "a few more in the ground" would cost more
taxpayer money than imprisoning 'em for life.

And going soft on killers is nothing new. From 19th century Russian
novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment":

"He had been led to the murder through his shallow and cowardly
nature, exasperated moreover by privation and failure. ... All the
strange and peculiar circumstances of the crime were taken into
consideration. There could be no doubt of the abnormal and
poverty-stricken condition of the criminal at the time. ... And in the
end the criminal was in consideration of extenuating circumstances
condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a term of eight
years only."

Gee, we give some dope dealers tougher sentences than
that.