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Fewer Indiana Prosecutors Pursuing Death Penalty

Owen County Prosecutor Don VanDerMoere says he hasn't decided whether to pursue the death penalty for the man accused of raping and killing 1-year-old Shaylyn Ammerman.

In order for a case to qualify for the death penalty, it must meet at least one of 18 circumstances outlined by the general assembly. One of those circumstances is the murder of a child.

The number of death penalty cases in Indiana has declined over the past five years.

"We used to average between 25 and 40 death penalty cases filed each year throughout the state," says Paula Sites, assistant executive director of the Indiana Public Defender Council. "Over the last ten years our average is actually fewer than two per year."

Sites says one reason for the drop in death penalty cases could be the cost.

A 2010 report from the Legislative Services Agency found it costs as much as ten times more, on average, to prosecute a death penalty case to the end than a life without parole case.

"Only about one in five death penalty cases that are filed actually result in a death sentence," Sites says. "The rest are usually resolved by plea agreement, most often with a sentence of life without parole."

In 2007, Parke County increased its Economic Development Income Tax to help pay for the costs of pursuing a death penalty case against Chad Cottrell. A judge sentenced Cottrell to life without parole for killing his wife and daughters.

The availability of life without parole could also be contributing to the drop in death penalty cases. The General Assembly made the sentencing option available in 1993.

"I think the concern was if this person who committed this terrible crime doesn't get the death penalty, could they end up committing another crime at some point in the future if they just had a certain number of years?" says IUPUI Clinical Professor of Law Joel Schumm. "There was a possibility they would get parole, but with life without parole that's not a possibility, so I think that's made it easier I think to resolve some of these cases."

VanDerMoere says he could make a decision on whether to pursue the death penalty in the Shaylyn Ammerman case within the next two months.

The case could go to trial as early as August.

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