Take a hard look at the real cost of the death penalty.

Can Florida continue to afford the death penalty?

Rex Dimmig, chief assistant public defender of the 10th Judicial Circuit in Bartow, brought that question to a recent Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee meeting.

On behalf of the Florida Public Defender Association, Dimmig called for a moratorium on the death penalty.

"We discovered that the most expensive, most time-consuming, and least cost-effective service we provided was in death penalty cases," Dimmig told the committee.

"And when I use the term 'least cost effective,' I am not talking about a philosophical debate over whether or not the state of Florida should have a death penalty. What I am talking about is the economic stuff."

He estimated that Florida spends $51 million a year to impose and implement the death penalty, rather than sending convicted first-degree murderers to prison for life without parole. It is estimated that each execution costs taxpayers $24 million.

The Florida Supreme Court wrote an opinion in 2005 saying there should be legislative reform of the death penalty statute, Dimmig noted, and an ABA study of Florida's death penalty in 2006 recommended reform, too.

"But those of us who actually work in the system did not need a Supreme Court opinion. We did not need an ABA study to know that the system is broken," Dimmig said.

"We recognize that capital punishment, as it currently exists in Florida, cannot continue to sustain itself. In time, it is simply going to collapse under its own weight."

Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, chair of this appropriations committee and also the Commission on Capital Cases, told Dimmig: "I have respectfully let you go on, even though I respectfully disagree with most of what you said."

Though Crist said he had to debate the other side when he was a Catholic high school student, he's heard from enough murder victims' families to make him favor the death penalty, while "trying to address issues that never seem to end."

The senator talked about getting rid of "multiple, wasteful appeals."

"The bottom line is until the people of the state of Florida vote at the polls that they don't want the death penalty," Crist said, he will focus on making sure the death penalty is carried out in a just and humane way.

After the meeting, Dimmig said: "I have the utmost respect for Sen. Crist. We are not interested in asking for the abolition of the death penalty. We are advocating a moratorium.

"The timing is right now. The death...