Seeking the death penal­ty in Indiana is very expen­sive, even though most cas­es in which the death penal­ty is sought do not end in an exe­cu­tion. According to the Indiana Public Defender Council, only 16% per­cent of death penal­ty cas­es in the state filed between 1990 and 2009 (30 out of 188) end­ed with a death sen­tence, and even few­er result­ed in an exe­cu­tion. In Vanderburgh County, where tax­pay­ers have spent $800,000 in the last two decades defend­ing cap­i­tal cas­es, only one of the last five death penal­ty tri­als has result­ed in an exe­cu­tion. Parke County had to raise its tax­es to pay for the pros­e­cu­tion of a death penal­ty case, which ulti­mate­ly end­ed with a guilty plea and a life-with­out-parole sen­tence. Vanderburgh County Councilman Tom Shetler acknowl­edged the cur­rent sys­tem can be bur­den­some, ​“There is no doubt finan­cial­ly it is a seri­ous hard­ship on the tax­pay­ers,” Shetler said. According to a fis­cal impact report pre­sent­ed by the Indiana Legislative Services agency, the aver­age cost of a death penal­ty tri­al and direct appeal was more than $450,000 – over 10 times the cost of a life-with­out-parole tri­al, which aver­aged $42,658. The same report also found that 19 of the 26 death penal­ty cas­es between 2000 and 2007 end­ed in plea agree­ments for sen­tences of life without parole.

Stephen Owens, Vanderburgh County’s chief pub­lic defend­er, not­ed, ​“Financially strapped coun­ties can’t afford it. In my per­son­al opin­ion, you can­not jus­ti­fy it from a finan­cial stand­point. We have alter­na­tives. We have life with­out parole .…” Paula Sites of the Indiana Public Defender Council com­pared the death penal­ty with life with­out parole: ​“If you look at this from a pub­lic pol­i­cy per­spec­tive, from a tax­pay­er’s per­spec­tive, in either case the per­son is going to die in prison. The only ques­tion is who picks the date.”

(M. Wilson, ​“Seeking death penal­ty in Indiana is expen­sive, often unsuc­cess­ful,” Courier Press, August 6, 2011). See Costs.

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