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 November 10, the Georgia Supreme Court will hear arguments from attorneys for a capital defendant, Jamie Weis, and from the state concerning a three-and-a-half year delay in bringing his case to trial. For two years of that delay, the Weis defense team had no funding, and for 14 months he was completely without representation. During this entire time, the state was staffed and funded to prepare its prosecution of Weis. The Court will decide whether Weis's constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated and whether that requires a dismissal of charges, or at least prevents the state from seeking the death penalty. Weis was arrested and charged with murder in 2006. He was assigned two attorneys, but because of a crisis in the state's indigent defense system, they were forced to resign and were not reassigned with pay until close to the trial date. Weis suffers from psychosis, depression and anxiety, and has been detained in a county jail. He has attempted suicide three times while awaiting trial.
The Death Penalty Information Center has released its latest report, "Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis." The report combines an analysis of the costs of the death penalty with a newly released national poll of police chiefs who put capital punishment at the bottom of their law enforcement priorities.
In Pennsylvania, the state goes through the expensive and time-consuming process of trying many death penalty cases and fighting appeals, but almost all cases end with a life sentence. According to a recent Associated Press study of what happens in capital cases in the state, 124 death sentences have been overturned and resentenced. When these cases went through the justice system a second time with the original errors corrected, 95% (118) resulted in life sentences or less. Only 6 inmates were resentenced to death. Pennsylvania has the fourth largest death row in the country, but the only people who have been executed were three inmates who waived their appeals. The last execution in a fully contested case was 47 years ago. Twenty-one inmates on death row have died of natural causes or suicide since 1983. Six inmates have been exonerated when their convictions were reversed and they were freed following acquittals or dismissal of all charges.