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A recent study of the military death penalty by Professor David Baldus revealed disparities depending on whether the victim in the underlying crime was also a member of the military or was a civilian.  The paper was co-authored by Professors Catherine Grosso and George Woodworth and was published by the Michigan State University College of Law.  The authors note that despite a 1984 executive order that "defined death eligible murder in the armed forces principally in terms of civilian murder modeled after state law systems," the military death penalty has been implemented in such a way that shows a large disparity between military murder and civilian murder. The study concluded that soldiers who are accused of civilian murder were less likely to face a capital court martial, to receive a capital conviction, and to be sentenced to death than soldiers who were accused of a military murder (murder of a commissioned or non-commissioned officer). "In this process," the report said, "the military death penalty has come to be used almost exclusively as a disciplinary vehicle to protect the authority and effectiveness of military command."

A recent opinion piece by the Editorial Director of the Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi points to the high costs of the death penalty as a way in which arbitrariness enters into the application of capital punishment: “When is a crime a crime deserving of death?," David Hampton asks.  "When the county can afford it, of course.” The paper supports the death penalty but the Editorial Director offered the example of Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith, who said his county cannot afford to prosecute death penalty cases. The author noted, “It's a matter of how much ‘justice‘ the county can afford. But if one county can ‘afford‘ to send someone to death row and another can't, isn't that another example of how inequitable the death penalty can be?“ Hampton also cited geographical location as contributing to the death penalty’s arbitrary nature. “Ironically, it is very difficult to get a death penalty jury sentence in Hinds County anyway. Prosecutors have avoided seeking death for that reason. Yet, another jury in a different county with a different racial or gender makeup might not hesitate." The author concludes: "The death penalty costs too much, literally and in many, many other ways."  Read full text below.

The costs of the death penalty have been a burden on various counties in Mississippi for many years.  Quitman County was forced to raise taxes for three years and borrowed $150,000 to provide legal counsel to Robert Simon and Anthony Carr, who were sentenced to death for murders committed in 1990.  A death-penalty case "is almost like lightning striking," county administrator Butch Scipper told The Wall Street Journal in 2002. "It is catastrophic to a small rural county."  Simon and Carr remain on the state's death row. 

In 1995, Jasper County spent three times more on one death penalty trial than it did on its public library system.  When more money was needed for capital prosecutions, the administration's solution was to raise property and car taxes in the county.  For all of this cost, the state has had ten executions in 30 years, and some in law enforcement believe there would have been better ways of spending taxpayers' money. Jackson Police Chief Rebecca Coleman said she is "not sure that the average criminal would consider the death penalty before they commit a crime." Coleman said the death penalty has an adverse economic impact and that funds spent on the death penalty in Mississippi could be better spent elsewhere. "I would look at more proactive means to serve as a deterrent to crime, as opposed to looking at it (reactively)" she said. Coleman would spend the funds in the juvenile justice system, breaking the back of the cradle-to-prison pipeline. "(I would put) programs in place to educate our kids to know the benefits of good behavior as opposed to behavior ... that ultimately would have them end up on death row," she said.

On October 28, 2009, Travis County, Texas, prosecutors moved to dismiss all charges against Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, who had been convicted of the murder of four teens in an Austin yogurt shop in 1991.  (Springsteen was convicted in 2001; Scott in 2002.)  Springsteen had been sentenced to death and Scott was sentenced to life in prison.  The convictions of both men were overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because they had not been adequately allowed to cross examine each other. (See Springsteen v. Texas, No. AP-74,223 (May 24, 2006)).  State District Judge Mike Lynch had released the defendants on bond in June, pending a possible retrial by the state.  However, sophisticated DNA analysis of evidence from the crime scene did not match either defendant and the prosecution announced it was not prepared to go to trial.  The judge accepted the state's motion to dismiss all charges.  Prosecutors are still trying to match the DNA from crime with a new defendant.

The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the world's largest regional security organization comprised of 56 States including the U.S., recently published a 2009 Background Paper on The  Death Penalty in the  OSCE Area.  It was prepared by the OSCE's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), and updates the 2008 background paper of the same title.  The 2009 paper highlights the changes in status of the death penalty in participating OSCE states.  Of the 56 countries, only the U.S. and Belarus retain an active death penalty.  The Russian Federation and Tajikistan retain the death penalty but are not carrying out executions.  The full text of the paper can be found in English and Russian on ODIHR's publication page.