News and Developments 2005: Costs

Birmingham News Criticizes Costly, Arbitrary Death Penalty

Posted: December 08, 2005
in

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
in

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
in

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
in

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
in
  • 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 21, 2005
in

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. "I think it's a warning," said Phyllis Mann, appointed counsel for Benjamin Tonguis and Adrian Citizen, two death penalty defendants whose cases were reviewed by the state supreme court.  "The court is saying as plainly as they possibly can not to let people languish."  Tonguis and Citizen have been awaiting trial with limited or no funds to prepare a defense since their arrests in April and October 2002. When funding for these two cases ran out, the trial judge tried to tap into a parish-imposed tax. He ordered the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury to provide $200,000 for appointed counsel and $75,000 to be placed in escrow for other case-related expenses, but the Louisiana Supreme Court forbid such a tax because it is the state legislature's responsibility to fund indigent defense expenses. 

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

Posted: March 07, 2005
in

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. This figure does not count the millions more spent on court costs to prosecute capital cases.  The Times concluded that Californians and federal taxpayers have paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars for each of the state's 11 executions, and that it costs $90,000 more a year to house one inmate on death row, where each person has a private cell and extra guards, than in general prison population. This additional cost per prisoner adds up to $57.5 million in annual spending.

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

Posted: February 28, 2005
in

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....