Hey Cutty!

[PhiSig1071]

I didn't want to hijack the other thread, so here you go:

Originally Posted by Cutty72

How is the Death penalty overly expensive?
It's a one time shot! I don't know how much it costs to kill someone in that manner, but I heard that each prisioner costs the state ~$36,000 a year.
Take that times life in prison and it's a lot of cash.

Personally, I say bring back the firing squad for the death penalty. Ammo is pretty cheap comparitavely.

I actually had to do a full report on the death penalty for a course on crime and punishment. The problem is this, the current state of death penalty convictions in the United States requires a completely bifurcated trial. According to a 1992 study by Duke University it costs $200,000 MORE than life imprisonment just to get the first conviction and death sentence, and $2,000,000 MORE to actually execute someone in the United States.

The problem is this, in 1972 the Furman v Ga case (which got a moratorium on executions in the United States for a number of years) they determined that the sentencing was unconstitutional because of the problem of mitigating circumstances. Basically it boils down to this, there are factors (mitigating circumstances) which make a person appear significantly more guilty of a crime but they make a jury significantly less likely to go after the death penalty and instead go for life imprisonment. The opposite was also true, in defending a person's innocence it made the jury more likely to go for the death penalty because the mitigating circumstances were not present. In the system as it applied at the time there was one single trial in which the jury had to come back with a guilty or not guilty verdict and simultaneously sentence the person to death. This was found to be unconstitutional, the defense attorney had to walk a very fine line, either make your client look guilty and possibly not be executed or make them look more innocent and guarantee the death penalty if they failed.

In another case in Georgia in 1976 the state created a two part, or bifurcated, trial system. Basically it is two complete seperate trials. The first determines the defendants guilt, and a complete second trial for sentencing. The second trial was the same legal procedure as the first, with a jury, prosecutor, defendant and defense counsel and all the associated expense. This sentencing trial allows the defense to bring mitigating circumstances forward that make it less likely for the person to be given the death penalty, but would have impacted the jury's impartiality during the conviction phase.

This system results in a trial system that is now literally twice the cost of any other trial. If the prosecutor goes for life imprisonment initially then they do not have a bifurcated trial.

On top of the expense of this expanded trial system a capitol case is much more likely to have an appeal, and significantly more likely to have a series of appeals than any other conviction. This is also an added expense in trial costs as well as the cost to jail the inmate. Capitol crimes inmates are housed to a different standard seperate from other prison population and this is more expensive. Also, most states do not or cannot use their capitol crimes inmates in cost-deferring programs like prison labor, they are a complete drain on the system, with no return. The lengthy appeals process makes the cost of housing a capitol crime defendant much more expensive.

All of these are expenses that are not incurred for a normal felony conviction. That is why it is significantly more expensive.