An inde­pen­dent study of the costs of seek­ing and impos­ing the death penal­ty in Oklahoma, pre­pared for the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, has con­clud­ed that seek­ing the death penal­ty in Oklahoma ​“incurs sig­nif­i­cant­ly more time, effort, and costs on aver­age, as com­pared to when the death penal­ty is not sought in first degree mur­der cas­es.” The report — pre­pared by Seattle University crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sors Peter A. Collins and Matthew J. Hickman and law pro­fes­sor Robert C. Boruchowitz, with research sup­port by Alexa D. O’Brien — found that, on aver­age, Oklahoma cap­i­tal cas­es cost 3.2 times more than non-cap­i­tal cas­es. Reviewing 15 state stud­ies of death penal­ty costs con­duct­ed between 2000 and 2016, the study found that, across the coun­try, seek­ing the death penal­ty impos­es an aver­age of approx­i­mate­ly $700,000 more in case-lev­el costs than not seek­ing death. The researchers wrote that ​“all of these stud­ies have found … that seek­ing and impos­ing the death penal­ty is more expen­sive than not seek­ing it.” The Oklahoma study reviewed 184 first-degree mur­der cas­es from Oklahoma and Tulsa coun­ties in the years 2004 – 2010 and ana­lyzed costs incurred at the pre-tri­al, tri­al, sen­tenc­ing, and post-sen­tenc­ing (appeals and incar­cer­a­tion) stages. Capital pros­e­cu­tions, it found, cost the coun­ties more than 1½ times the amount of incar­cer­a­tion costs than did non-cap­i­tal tri­als because cap­i­tal defen­dants spent an aver­age of 324 more days in jail pri­or to and dur­ing death penal­ty tri­als. Prosecutors spent triple in pre-tri­al and tri­al costs on death penal­ty pro­ceed­ings, while defense teams spent near­ly 10 times more. Oklahoma cap­i­tal appeal pro­ceed­ings cost between five and six times more than non-cap­i­tal appeals of first-degree mur­der con­vic­tions. Despite Oklahoma’s rank­ing in the bot­tom 19 states in jus­tice expen­di­tures and what Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater called ​“hor­rif­ic issues with under­fund­ing” of Oklahoma’s indi­gent defense sys­tem, the study ​“con­ser­v­a­tive­ly esti­mat­ed” that an Oklahoma cap­i­tal case cost $110,000 more on aver­age than a non-cap­i­tal case. The researchers said their results were ​“con­sis­tent with all pre­vi­ous research on death penal­ty costs, which have found that in com­par­ing sim­i­lar cas­es, seek­ing and impos­ing the death penal­ty is more expen­sive than not seek­ing it.” They con­clud­ed, ​“It is a sim­ple fact that seek­ing the death penal­ty is more expen­sive. There is not one cred­i­ble study, to our knowl­edge, that presents evi­dence to the contrary.”

(S. Vincent, ​“Costly death penal­ty cas­es strain state resources, report says,” Tulsa World, Apr. 29, 2017; P. Collins, M. Hickman, and R. Boruchowitz, ​“An Analysis of the Economic Costs of Capital Punishment in Oklahoma,” Appendix 1B to The Report of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission.) See Costs.

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