A recent study of the death penal­ty in Nevada com­pared the costs of defend­ing cap­i­tal and non-cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es. The study, con­duct­ed by Dr. Terance Miethe of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, looked at the time spent by defense attor­neys at var­i­ous stages of a case. The study’s find­ings includ­ed:
 — Clark County pub­lic defense attor­neys spent an aver­age of 2,298 hours on a cap­i­tal mur­der case com­pared to an aver­age of 1,087 hours on a non-cap­i­tal mur­der case – a dif­fer­ence of 1,211 hours, or 112%.
 — Defending the aver­age cap­i­tal mur­der case in Clark County cost $229,800 for a Public Defender or $287,250 for appoint­ed coun­sel. The addi­tion­al cost of cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es was $170,000 to $212,000 per case com­pared to the cost of a non-cap­i­tal mur­der case in the same coun­ty.
 — The 80 pend­ing cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es in Clark County will cost approx­i­mate­ly $15 mil­lion more than if they were pros­e­cut­ed with­out seek­ing the death penal­ty. More results below.

- Clark County cas­es that result­ed in a death sen­tence that con­clud­ed between 2009 and 2011 took an aver­age of 1,107 days, or just over 3 years, to go from ini­tial fil­ing to sen­tenc­ing. In con­trast, cas­es that result­ed in life with­out parole took an aver­age of 887 days (2.4 years) to go from ini­tial fil­ing to sen­tenc­ing.
 — Of the 35 com­plet­ed cas­es in Clark County from 2009 to 2011 where a Notice of Intent to seek the death penal­ty was filed, 69% result­ed in a life sen­tence. Nearly half (49%) ulti­mate­ly result­ed in a sen­tence of life with­out parole, and the next most com­mon dis­po­si­tion was a sen­tence of life with parole (20%). Only 5 of the 35 cas­es (14%) result­ed in a death sentence.

The study did not include the costs of pros­e­cu­tion or all appelate expens­es. The author not­ed: ​“It is impor­tant to note that this sta­tis­ti­cal extrap­o­la­tion does not cov­er the full array of time spent in cap­i­tal cas­es by oth­er court offi­cials (e.g. judges, pros­e­cu­tors, jurors), staff and admin­is­tra­tive per­son­nel, mit­i­ga­tion spe­cial­ists, inves­ti­ga­tors, and expert wit­ness­es. It also does not take into account the addi­tion­al costs of cap­i­tal lit­i­ga­tion that are asso­ci­at­ed with state/​federal appeals and the extra costs of impris­on­ment of death eli­gi­ble inmates pend­ing tri­al and sentencing.”

(T. Miethe, ​“Estimates of Time Spent in Capital and Non-Capital Murder Cases: A Statistical Analysis of Survey Data from Clark County Defense Attorneys,” Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, February 21, 2012; post­ed April 16, 2012). See Costs and Life Without Parole. Read more Studies on the death penalty.

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