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What is taking so long to study death penalty?

What happens to a prison inmate serving a life term who kills a prison guard?

He gets the death penalty — automatically, but the death penalty is on hold in Pennsylvania because of a moratorium imposed by Gov. Tom Wolf in February 2015, less than two months after he took office.

So what happens? Is the perpetrator of this heinous crime given a second life sentence?

Wolf’s decision to place a moratorium on Pennsylvania’s death penalty halted executions, fulfilled a campaign promise and sparked outrage among the state’s law enforcement agencies.

And now that outrage is back with a vengeance after last week’s stomping death of prison guard Sgt. Mark Baserman at Somerset State Prison by inmate Paul Jawon Kendrick, 22.

According to state police, Kendrick was angry that Baserman had removed a towel that was obstructing the view into his bunk, so when he had the opportunity, he pushed Baserman to the floor and kicked him repeatedly with heavy work boots. Police said Baserman was rendered helpless, but Kendrick continued kicking him in the head.

A second guard who came to Baserman’s aid was injured but is expected to make a full recovery.

Originally, police charged Kendrick with assault, but now that Baserman has died, they will charge Kendrick with homicide on Friday when Kendrick makes his first court appearance.

All of this was caught on a security camera tape, so it is virtually an open-and-shut case. This is precisely the kind of case that begs for the death penalty.

We are frustrated that the death penalty has been put on the shelf for more than 37 months while the study commission appointed before Wolf even became governor completes its work. What is taking so long and what is causing the delay? The commission’s chair, state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, and a representative for the governor have been evasive.

The Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment was formed in 2011 under former Gov. Tom Corbett through a Senate resolution. It’s made up of a group of four senators (two Democrats, two Republicans) as well as more than 20 advisory members.

Researchers at Penn State, which was commissioned to analyze data, are having problems obtaining records from some county courthouses. There was an expectation that the report could be finished by the end of 2016, but that never happened.

True to his campaign pledge when he ran for governor in 2014, Wolf issued a temporary reprieve on execution warrants until he reviews the report on the state’s death penalty. “Both my duty as governor and my conscience require that I proceed with great caution, and with all relevant facts at hand,” Wolf said.

In announcing his decision, Wolf said: “This moratorium is in no way an expression of sympathy for the guilty on death row, all of whom have been convicted of committing heinous crimes. This decision is based on a flawed system that has been proven to be an endless cycle of court proceedings, as well as ineffective, unjust and expensive.”

The decision to impose the moratorium irked police, prosecutors and statehouse Republicans, who accused Wolf of injecting his personal views into a controversial topic.

The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association has been a critic of the moratorium. They cited the case of convicted cop killer Eric Frein, who gunned down state police Cpl. Bryon Dickson and wounded trooper Alex Douglass at the Blooming Grove state police substation in Pike County in September 2014.

On April 19, 2017, Frein was found guilty on all charges. A week later, the jury recommended the death penalty. The following day, Frein was formally sentenced to death by lethal injection. Frein is awaiting execution on death row at the State Correctional Institution in Greene County, a maximum-security prison in western Pennsylvania.

Housing the inmates on death row costs us taxpayers about $8 million a year. Each capital case inmate results in a cost of about $43,000 annually, or some $10,000 more than other inmates because of policies requiring extra guards when moving death row inmates from their cells to other places in prison.

Although the state has not carried out an execution in more than 18 years, Pennsylvania’s prison system houses nearly 200 death row inmates. Since the Legislature reauthorized capital punishment in 1978, governors have signed 434 death warrants, but just three executions have happened since then. It’s time for the death penalty study commission to get off the dime and finish its work. It has been at it now for nearly six years. We think this report is long, long overdue.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com