http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/15/texas.death.row/
Three decades after death sentence, Texas murder convict dies in cell
From Divina Mims, CNN
November 15, 2010 8:10 p.m. EST
...
Texas, which has executed more prisoners since 1976 than any other state, pays $86.08 to execute a death row inmate, or the cost of drugs used in a lethal injection, the state's Division of Criminal Justice reports. That compares to the $17,338, on average, that it costs to jail a Texas inmate for 12 months, according to 2009 data from the National Institute of Corrections, which is below the national yearly average of $28,689.
...
Well, that's sort of a half-story if ever I read one:
California
Report of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice
“The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.”
•Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present (death penalty) system to be $137 million per year.
•The cost of the present system with reforms recommended by the Commission to ensure a fair process would be $232.7 million per year.
•The cost of a system in which the number of death-eligible crimes was significantly narrowed would be $130 million per year.
•The cost of a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty would be $11.5 million per year.
(Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, June 30, 2008).
Maryland
New Study Reveals Maryland Pays $37 Million for One Execution
A new study released by the Urban Institute on March 6, 2008 forecasted that the lifetime expenses of capitally-prosecuted cases since 1978 will cost Maryland taxpayers $186 million. That translates into at least $37.2 million for each of the state’s five executions since the state reenacted the death penalty. The study estimates that the average cost to Maryland taxpayers for reaching a single death sentence is $3 million - $1.9 million more than the cost of a non-death penalty case. (This includes investigation, trial, appeals, and incarceration costs.) The study examined 162 capital cases that were prosecuted between 1978 and 1999 and found that those cases will cost $186 million more than what those cases would have cost had the death penalty not existed as a punishment. At every phase of a case, according to the study, capital murder cases cost more than non-capital murder cases.
Of the 162 capital cases, there werer 106 cases in which a death sentence was sought but not handed down in Maryland. Those cases cost the state an additional $71 million compared to the cost non-death penalty cases. Those costs were incurred simply to seek the death penalty where the ultimate outcome was a life or long-term prison sentence.
(“Death penalty costs Md. more than life term,” by Jennifer McMenamin, The Baltimore Sun, March 6, 2008). Read the entire study here.
Federal Costs
The average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, about 8 times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty is not sought. A study found that those defendants whose representation was the least expensive, and thus who received the least amount of attorney and expert time, had an increased probability of receiving a death sentence. Defendants with less than $320,000 in terms of representation costs (the bottom 1/3 of federal capital trials) had a 44% chance of receiving a death sentence at trial. On the other hand, those defendants whose representation costs were higher than $320,000 (the remaining 2/3 of federal capital trials) had only a 19% chance of being sentenced to death. Thus, the study concluded that defendants with low representation costs were more than twice as likely to receive a death sentence. The complete report can be found here.
(Office of Defender Services of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, "Update on Cost, Quality, and Availability of Defense Representation in Federal Death Penalty Cases," June 2008; prepared by Jon Gould and Lisa Greenman).
EDIT: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
Originally posted by zeeblebotHow do they possibly not count the salaries of the scores of prison staff, execution staff, etc., that are necessary to carry out an execution?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/15/texas.death.row/
Three decades after death sentence, Texas murder convict dies in cell
From Divina Mims, CNN
November 15, 2010 8:10 p.m. EST
...
Texas, which has executed more prisoners since 1976 than any other state, pays $86.08 to execute a death row inmate, or the cost of drugs used in a lethal injection, ...[text shortened]... tional Institute of Corrections, which is below the national yearly average of $28,689.
...
In other news...
It costs the New York Yankees $647 to field a baseball team in baseballs, gloves, bats and rosin bags.
those are all arguments for reducing the costs.
why SHOULD it cost $90K more to house death row inmates over max security?
why SHOULD capital trials get more funding than other trials?
if the DP wasn't treated as a special verdict, it wouldn't cost so much. other countries (China for one) are farther along than we, here.
Originally posted by zeeblebotShouldn't you be supporting penal labour instead of the death penalty?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/15/texas.death.row/
Three decades after death sentence, Texas murder convict dies in cell
From Divina Mims, CNN
November 15, 2010 8:10 p.m. EST
...
Texas, which has executed more prisoners since 1976 than any other state, pays $86.08 to execute a death row inmate, or the cost of drugs used in a lethal injection, ...[text shortened]... tional Institute of Corrections, which is below the national yearly average of $28,689.
...
Originally posted by mwmillerYou have to get close for that. It's safer to just machine gun them or gas them in mass.
How many hangings can you get out of a good rope?
So now we're moving to Saddam Hussein territory...or even [censored due to Godwin's Law].
The criminals can breed faster than you can kill them, and the more the iron fist smashes people, the more citizens will rebel and join the criminals. You can't win this one. The government cannot subdue the will of the people.
You want the USA to look like north Mexico?