This article is about how a prison decided to use teleconferencing instead of a court appearance for multiple murder suspect Joshua Komisarjevsky. It costs the state of Connecticut $1,600 every time this guy shows up in court according to this article. He is a high security inmate, facing charges of murder, rape and arson from a 2007 home invasion in which a woman and her two daughters were killed in Cheshire. It is expensive for this guy to go to court because at every appearance he has to have a special detail of corrections officers and two state troopers accompany him. This whole teleconferencing thing is being used in 10 other states as well: Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee. It supposedly saves on high fuel prices and accompaniment helping out the tight state budgets. It also improves on public safety which can never be a bad thing. The article quotes Connecticut Corrections Commissioner Theresa C. Lantz when she argues for teleconferencing with inmates by saying this, "It's vehicles, it's gasoline, it's maintenance of those vehicles, it's the driver plus another officer for security purposes, it's all the work that is involved in taking an inmate out of a facility, putting them in a secure vehicle, transporting them to another location." Opposing the argument are the inmates, some say they would rather plead their case in person and that it isn't as fair and doesn't give them their best or fairest chance.I think the whole teleconferencing idea is good although I kind of agree with the inmates in that if I was pleading innocence or pleading for my life I would rather it be in person. But i guess life is tough and especially tougher for those who make bad decisions. If it saves money and improves public safety I don't see why we shouldn't do it especially in a time of crisis like now. Money is becoming scarce and now we are going to spend it on someone who just killed little Betty Sue? Not according to the 10 states that are now using teleconferencing. I believe that it is good stuff to save money but we have to be careful to not take too many rights away from people in jail, for all we know they could be innocent. Let 9 guilty men go free before we jail one innocent man. We learned that in my social class in Alexandria, Minnesota which is saying that our government is based on the rights of the individual and we have a thing called rule of law that states no one is above or below the law. I am not saying I am against teleconferencing but we should just make sure we don't cross the line.Over and Out... this is Charlie Warnes.
~Charlie~
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