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News and Developments 2005: Costs

Birmingham News Criticizes Costly, Arbitrary Death Penalty

Posted: December 08, 2005
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A recent editorial in The Birmingham News criticized the costly and unfair nature of Alabama's capital punishment system. It also called on state legislators to, at a minimum, take steps that would limit the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty. The newspaper, which recently wrote a series of editorials changing its long-standing support for capital punishment and calling on the state to abandon the use of the death penalty, noted:

COSTS: Death Penalty Has Cost New Jersey Taxpayers $253 Million

Posted: November 21, 2005
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A New Jersey Policy Perspectives report concluded that the state's death penalty has cost taxpayers $253 million since 1983, a figure that is over and above the costs that would have been incurred had the state utilized a sentence of life without parole instead of death. The study examined the costs of death penalty cases to prosecutor offices, public defender offices, courts, and correctional facilities. The report's authors said that the cost estimate is "very conservative" because other significant costs uniquely associated with the death penalty were not available.

NEW VOICES: "Hanging Judge" Calls for End to the Death Penalty

Posted: June 27, 2005
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Retired Orange County, California Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin, who was once known as "the hanging judge," recently called for an end to the death penalty. In a column he published in the Orange County Register, McCartin revealed that a number of recent death penalty cases and rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court have led him to now oppose capital punishment because it is expensive and can never be applied in a fair and balanced way. He wrote:

Indiana Editorial Calls For End to "Costly" Death Penalty

Posted: June 23, 2005
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An editorial in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette stated that the death penalty is more expensive than life without parole and offers Indiana residents no measurable benefit for their tax dollars. The paper said that ending the death penalty and reallocating funds currently put toward capital punishment would improve programs such as victim's assistance, grassroots police programs, and social service agencies that work with at-risk youth. The Journal Gazette editorial noted:

BOOKS: Clemency

Posted: June 09, 2005
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  • A new book by Professor Austin Sarat focuses on clemency's role in the U.S. criminal justice system: "Mercy on Trial: What It Means to Stop an Execution." According to U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, "This thoughtful book should be read by every citizen who cares about the issue, and by every governor and president entrusted with the power to punish or pardon." In "Mercy on Trial," Sarat reviews the complexities of clemency and examines issues such as rehabilitation. (Princeton University Press, 2005).

Death Penalty Prosecutions May be Halted if Funding is Inadequate

Posted: April 20, 2005
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The Louisiana Supreme Court recently ruled that trial judges can halt prosecutions of poor defendants until the state comes up with the money to pay for an adequate defense.   Louisiana has in the past failed to adequately fund indigent defense programs.

In California, Taxpayers are Paying a Quarter of a Billion Dollars for each Execution

Posted: March 07, 2005
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According to state and federal records obtained by The Los Angeles Times, maintaining the California death penalty system costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of simply keeping the convicts locked up for life.

NEW VOICES: Hearings in New York Help Shift Stance of Judiciary Committee's Leader

Posted: February 28, 2005
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The Chair of the Judiciary Committee of the New York Assembly recently voiced her strong concerns about the state's death penalty.  Although she supported capital punishment earlier, Assemblywoman Helene E. Weinstein spoke about the evolution in her thinking and her particular concerns about the risk of executing the innocent: "It was an evolutionary process. But clearly the advent of DNA evidence and the dramatic number of individuals who have been exonerated and freed from death row in states around the country was something that was building in my mind....

Former Death Row Inmate Wins $6.6 Million Lawsuit Against FBI Agents

Posted: January 28, 2005
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Former Illinois death row inmate Steven Manning (pictured) has been awarded $6.6 million in a civil lawsuit against two FBI agents. A jury found that the agents had framed Manning twice, including once for murder. The jury found FBI agents Robert Buchan and Gary Miller liable of concocting evidence to frame Manning, their one-time informant and a former Chicago police officer, in the murder of a trucking firm executive and in the kidnapping of two Missouri drug dealers.

New Voices: Key New York Legislator Doubts Need For Death Penalty

Posted: January 27, 2005
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New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver voiced serious doubts about the necessity for capital punishment in light of its high cost and the alternative sentencing option of life without parole. Silver, who supported the death penalty in the past, said: "I have some doubt whether we need a death penalty.... We are spending tens of millions of dollars [that] may be better spent on educating children." He also remarked that the life-without-parole statute the state now has in place ensures that those convicted of murder can't go free.