Citing the costs of seeking the death penalty, Louisiana prosecutors are “cutting way back,” according to State Attorney General Buddy Caldwell. A former district attorney, Caldwell compared trying a capital case to “playing on a $100-a-roll table instead of a nickel or dime table.” He explained that he could try a second-degree murder case for $15,000 to $20,000 instead of $250,000 to put a death-penalty defendant on trial. Caldwell said the cost of expert witnesses and investigators was one reason for the price difference. District attorney Linda Watson said the costs of prosecuting a capital case are too much, especially for an impoverished region. Since parishes usually have to pay for legal defense costs and housing for jurors during trials, in addition to the prosecutor’s expert witnesses and investigators, her office usually pursues life in prison instead. “The cost of a death penalty case is unbelievable,” Watson said.
Louisiana has not had an execution in almost seven years. Death row inmates are confined at the state prison in Angola.
(M. Millhollon, “Economics of Executions,” Advocate Capital News, March 8, 2009). See Costs and Arbritrariness.
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