The following info is from this website: http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42
It costs approximately $90,000 more a year to house an inmate on death row, than in the general prison population or $57.5 million annually.
The Attorney General devotes about 15% of his budget, or $11 million annually to death penalty cases.
The California Supreme Court spends $11.8 million on appointed counsel for death row inmates.
The Office of the State Public Defender and the Habeas Corpus Resource Center spend a total of $22.3 million on defense for indigent defendants facing death.
The federal court system spends approximately $12 million on defending death row inmates in federal court. Source: Tempest, Rone, "Death Row Often Means a Long Life", Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2005.
Capital punishment in California, as in every other state, is more expensive than a life imprisonment sentence without the opportunity of parole. These costs are not the result of frivolous appeals but rather the result of Constitutionally mandated safeguards that can be summarized as follows:
Juries must be given clear guidelines on sentencing, which result in explicit provisions for what constitutes aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
Defendants must have a dual trial--one to establish guilt or innocence and if guilty a second trial to determine whether or not they would get the death penalty.
Defendants sentenced to death are granted oversight protection in an automatic appeal to the state supreme court.
Constitutional Safeguards
Since there are few defendants who will plead guilty to a capital charge, virtually every death penalty trial becomes a jury trial with all of the following elements:
a more extensive jury selection procedure
a four fold increase in the number of motions filed
a longer, dual trial process
more investigators and expert testimony
more lawyers specializing in death penalty litigation
automatic, mandatory appeals
This study titled "Capital Punishment at What Price: An Analysis of the Cost Issue in a Strategy to Abolish the Death Penalty" was completed by David Erickson in 1993 in the form of a Master's Thesis for U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Public Policy. The complete study can be found in the U.C. Berkeley Graduate Library or can be obtained by contacting Death Penalty Focus. Full study is here: http://www.deathpenalty.org//downloads/Erickson1993COSTSTUDY.pdf
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Part 1- why the death penalty is more costly
Date: 2010-07-19 10:27 am (UTC)It costs approximately $90,000 more a year to house an inmate on death row, than in the general prison population or $57.5 million annually.
The Attorney General devotes about 15% of his budget, or $11 million annually to death penalty cases.
The California Supreme Court spends $11.8 million on appointed counsel for death row inmates.
The Office of the State Public Defender and the Habeas Corpus Resource Center spend a total of $22.3 million on defense for indigent defendants facing death.
The federal court system spends approximately $12 million on defending death row inmates in federal court.
Source: Tempest, Rone, "Death Row Often Means a Long Life", Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2005.
Capital punishment in California, as in every other state, is more expensive than a life imprisonment sentence without the opportunity of parole. These costs are not the result of frivolous appeals but rather the result of Constitutionally mandated safeguards that can be summarized as follows:
Juries must be given clear guidelines on sentencing, which result in explicit provisions for what constitutes aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
Defendants must have a dual trial--one to establish guilt or innocence and if guilty a second trial to determine whether or not they would get the death penalty.
Defendants sentenced to death are granted oversight protection in an automatic appeal to the state supreme court.
Constitutional Safeguards
Since there are few defendants who will plead guilty to a capital charge, virtually every death penalty trial becomes a jury trial with all of the following elements:
a more extensive jury selection procedure
a four fold increase in the number of motions filed
a longer, dual trial process
more investigators and expert testimony
more lawyers specializing in death penalty litigation
automatic, mandatory appeals
This study titled "Capital Punishment at What Price: An Analysis of the Cost Issue in a Strategy to Abolish the Death Penalty" was completed by David Erickson in 1993 in the form of a Master's Thesis for U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Public Policy. The complete study can be found in the U.C. Berkeley Graduate Library or can be obtained by contacting Death Penalty Focus.
Full study is here: http://www.deathpenalty.org//downloads/Erickson1993COSTSTUDY.pdf