THE COST OF LIFE

‘The California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life.
Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state’s executions.’
- L.A. Times, March 6, 2005

It is complete fiction that executing a criminal is cheaper than life imprisonment. In Texas alone, a death penalty case costs on average $2.3 MILLION – about THREE TIMES MORE than the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 YEARS.
With the economy the way it is at the moment, we have better things to spend our money on than legal murder. Our taxes should be being spent on more important things, like education, crime prevention, victim services... All of these things compete with death penalty cases for funds.

So why is capital punishment so damn expensive?

Most people who are facing the death penalty can’t afford their own attorney and so the state must assign them public defenders, which costs money. And that’s on top of the costs of the prosecution. There are also pre-trial costs because capital cases are way more complicated than normal cases so a lot of the time experts have to be hired to testify about things like forensic evidence and mental health issues in defendants. Experts costs money. And then there is the jury selection. Jury selection takes a lot more time and money in capital cases due to the death penalty question.

All of this is on top of the trial itself! Death Penalty trials often last a very long time, sometimes up to 4 times longer than normal trials and so jury members and attorneys must be compensated. And, of course, court personal must be paid, and so on.

And the costs keep building up once the inmate is handed his death sentence. The death row unit of a prison involve solitary confinement in a special facility which requires more security, etc. as inmates are in the cells for 23 hours of the day.

Perhaps most expensive is the appeals. Every inmate is entitled to a series of appeals. They are really important because some inmates have come within hours of execution before evidence was uncovered proving their innocence. Very few wave this right. Taxpayers pay for these appeals.

In conclusion, the death penalty costs the taxpayers a fortune! So why are we paying for the state to commit legal murder? SAY NO TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!

Thanks to ScofieldBurrows for researching this article