County Judge Michael P. Donnelly, a mem­ber of Ohio’s Death Penalty Task Force appoint­ed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, recent­ly called the costs of cap­i­tal tri­als ​“astro­nom­i­cal.” He went on to say that a coun­ty’s bud­get may be a fac­tor in deci­sions to seek the death penal­ty: “[W]ith 88 dif­fer­ent pros­e­cu­tors who have com­plete dis­cre­tion on whether to pur­sue it or not, and you have to draw the infer­ence that, in some coun­ties, it’s not pur­sued because it’s just not eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble.” For exam­ple, Summit County is fac­ing a 15% over­run of its court indi­gent defense bud­get because of five cas­es in which pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty this year. The most recent cap­i­tal tri­al cost the coun­ty $102,715, last­ed near­ly two months, and end­ed in a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Court offi­cials said an aggra­vat­ed mur­der case with­out death penal­ty charges typ­i­cal­ly costs $15,000 to $20,000 and lasts only two weeks. The judge added, ​“There’s no way you can look at the way [the death penal­ty is] applied in Ohio and draw the con­clu­sion that it’s fair, or that it’s accom­plish­ing what it pur­ports to do — and that is, deliv­er the most severe pun­ish­ment to the worst of the worst. It’s just not taking place.”

(E. Meyer, ​“Death-penal­ty cas­es involv­ing Summit County indi­gents strain the bud­get,” Akron Beacon Journal, October 3, 2014). See Costs and New Voices.

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