A recent report to the Committee on Defender Services of the Judicial Conference of the United States by Jon Gould and Lisa Greenman pro­vid­ed an update on the costs of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in fed­er­al death penal­ty cas­es. The report exam­ined all cas­es in which the fed­er­al death penal­ty was autho­rized by the U.S. Attorney General between 1998 and 2004. The authors found that ​“The medi­an cost of a case in which the Attorney General autho­rized seek­ing the death penal­ty was near­ly eight times greater than the cost of a case that was eli­gi­ble for cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion but in which the death penal­ty was not autho­rized.” (empha­sis added). The report found that the medi­an cost for defense rep­re­sen­ta­tion in a death case that went to tri­al was $465,602, includ­ing $101,592 for experts. If the autho­rized case was set­tled by a plea, the medi­an cost was $200,933, still far greater than the medi­an cost of a death-eli­gi­ble case in which the death penal­ty was not sought– $44,809. In oth­er words, it is the seek­ing of the death penal­ty that con­sid­er­ably rais­es the costs, even if the case results in a plea bar­gain and no tri­al. These fig­ures do not include pros­e­cu­tion and judicial costs .

The report also found a close cor­re­la­tion between low spend­ing and a height­ened prob­a­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence: ​“There was a strong asso­ci­a­tion between a low­er cost defense rep­re­sen­ta­tion and an increased like­li­hood of a death sen­tence at tri­al. For tri­al cas­es in which defense spend­ing was among the low­est one-third of all tri­al cas­es, the rate of death sen­tenc­ing was 44 per­cent. For tri­al cas­es in which defense resources were in the remain­ing two-thirds of cost, the like­li­hood of a death sen­tence was 19 per­cent. Thus, the low­est cost cas­es were more than twice as like­ly to yield sen­tences of death.”

(J. Gould and L. Greenman, ​“Report to the Committee on Defender Services-Judicial Conference of the United States,” September 2010. See Federal Death Penalty and Costs.

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