An upcom­ing death penal­ty tri­al in Ohio will cost three to four times more than the cost of a life-with­out-parole tri­al, accord­ing to the tri­al judge, Michael Sage (pic­tured). The death penal­ty tri­al for Hector Alvarenga Retana, sched­uled to begin on October 31, is expect­ed to cost Butler County an esti­mat­ed $250,000, accord­ing to the judge, not count­ing the cost of appeals. He said, “[The cost] is so great we can’t afford to pay for that direct­ly out of our ongo­ing bud­get. All the costs asso­ci­at­ed with that we take direct­ly to the com­mis­sion­ers.” A co-defen­dant in the case also faced the death penal­ty but was sen­tenced to prison for 78-years-to-life. Despite the high costs, defense attor­neys are often paid very lit­tle. Chris Pagan, who has defend­ed sev­er­al death penal­ty cas­es, recent­ly said he would have to aban­don this type of work because of the inad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion death penal­ty defense attor­neys receive: ​“The [com­pen­sa­tion rates] are extreme­ly low com­pared with the costs in oth­er met­ro­pol­i­tan areas.… I’m not doing it any­more I can’t afford it. You get 40 bucks an hour and my over­head costs more than that.”

(D. Callahan, ​“Cost to tax­pay­ers high in death penal­ty cas­es,” Middletown Journal, October 17, 2011). See Costs and New Voices.

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