According to state and fed­er­al records obtained by The Los Angeles Times, main­tain­ing the California death penal­ty sys­tem costs tax­pay­ers more than $114 mil­lion a year beyond the cost of sim­ply keep­ing the con­victs locked up for life. This fig­ure does not count the mil­lions more spent on court costs to pros­e­cute cap­i­tal cas­es. The Times con­clud­ed that Californians and fed­er­al tax­pay­ers have paid more than a quar­ter of a bil­lion dol­lars for each of the state’s 11 exe­cu­tions, and that it costs $90,000 more a year to house one inmate on death row, where each per­son has a pri­vate cell and extra guards, than in gen­er­al prison pop­u­la­tion. This addi­tion­al cost per pris­on­er adds up to $57.5 mil­lion in annual spending. 

California has 640 peo­ple on death row, about 20% of the nation’s total, but it accounts for only 1% of the nation’s exe­cu­tions. Since California rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in 1978, 11 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed.

The Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Ronald George, said that 115 death row inmates still have not been appoint­ed lawyers for their first direct appeal and 149 lack lawyers for oth­er parts of their appeal. The court spends 20% of its time and resources on death penal­ty cas­es alone. (Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2005). See Costs and Life Without Parole.

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