Policy Issues

Costs

Studies consistently find that the death penalty is more expensive than alternative punishments.

DPIC Report: The 2% Death Penalty

DPIC Report: The 2% Death Penalty

How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All

DPIC Report: Smart on Crime

DPIC Report: Smart on Crime

Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis

Overview

The death penal­ty is a moral issue for some and a pol­i­cy issue for oth­ers. However, it is also a gov­ern­ment pro­gram with relat­ed costs and pos­si­ble ben­e­fits. Many peo­ple assume that the state saves mon­ey by employ­ing the death penal­ty since an exe­cut­ed per­son no longer requires con­fine­ment, health care, and relat­ed expens­es. But in the mod­ern appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, that assump­tion has been proven wrong.

The death penal­ty is far more expen­sive than a sys­tem uti­liz­ing life-with­out-parole sen­tences as an alter­na­tive pun­ish­ment. Some of the rea­sons for the high cost of the death penal­ty are the longer tri­als and appeals required when a person’s life is on the line, the need for more lawyers and experts on both sides of the case, and the rel­a­tive rar­i­ty of exe­cu­tions. Most cas­es in which the death penal­ty is sought do not end up with the death penal­ty being imposed. And once a death sen­tence is imposed, the most like­ly out­come of the case is that the con­vic­tion or death sen­tence will be over­turned in the courts. Most defen­dants who are sen­tenced to death essen­tial­ly end up spend­ing life in prison, but at a high­ly inflat­ed cost because the death penal­ty was involved in the process.

The Issue
 

How much the death penal­ty actu­al­ly costs and how that com­pares to a sys­tem in which a life sen­tence is the max­i­mum pun­ish­ment can only be deter­mined by sophis­ti­cat­ed stud­ies, usu­al­ly at the state lev­el. Many such stud­ies have been con­duct­ed and their con­clu­sions are con­sis­tent: the death penal­ty impos­es a net cost on the tax­pay­ers com­pared to life with­out parole. The ques­tion is whether the assumed ben­e­fits of the death penal­ty are worth its costs and whether oth­er sys­tems might pro­vide sim­i­lar ben­e­fits at less cost. The assess­ments of law enforce­ment experts are par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant in iden­ti­fy­ing what expen­di­tures are most effec­tive in reducing crime.

What DPIC Offers

This sec­tion con­tains sum­maries of each of the main cost stud­ies on the death penal­ty and links to many of the entire stud­ies. In addi­tion, DPIC has pre­pared a num­ber of reports that relate to the ques­tion of costs and to the opin­ions of police chiefs and oth­er experts in this field.

Why is the death penalty so expensive?
 

  • Legal costs: Almost all peo­ple who face the death penal­ty can­not afford their own attor­ney. The state must assign pub­lic defend­ers or court-appoint­ed lawyers to rep­re­sent them (the accept­ed prac­tice is to assign two lawyers), and pay for the costs of the pros­e­cu­tion as well.
  • Pre-tri­al costs: Capital cas­es are far more com­pli­cat­ed than non-cap­i­tal cas­es and take longer to go to tri­al. Experts will prob­a­bly be need­ed on foren­sic evi­dence, men­tal health, and the back­ground and life his­to­ry of the defen­dant. County tax­pay­ers pick up the costs of added secu­ri­ty and longer pre-trial detention.
  • Jury selec­tion: Because of the need to ques­tion jurors thor­ough­ly on their views about the death penal­ty, jury selec­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es is much more time con­sum­ing and expensive.
  • Trial: Death-penal­ty tri­als can last more than four times longer than non-cap­i­tal tri­als, requir­ing juror and attor­ney com­pen­sa­tion, in addi­tion to court per­son­nel and oth­er related costs.
  • Incarceration: Most death rows involve soli­tary con­fine­ment in a spe­cial facil­i­ty. These require more secu­ri­ty and oth­er accom­mo­da­tions as the pris­on­ers are kept for 23 hours a day in their cells.
  • Appeals: To min­i­mize mis­takes, every pris­on­er is enti­tled to a series of appeals. The costs are borne at tax­pay­ers’ expense. These appeals are essen­tial because some inmates have come with­in hours of exe­cu­tion before evi­dence was uncov­ered prov­ing their innocence.

News & Developments


News

Sep 11, 2024

See What Utah Spent on Its First Execution in 14 Years

Taberon Honie was an American Indian from the Hopi-Tewa com­mu­ni­ty whose life was marked by pover­ty, sub­stance abuse, and gen­er­a­tional trau­ma. His par­ents were forced to attend Indian board­ing schools, which were noto­ri­ous­ly abu­sive and designed to strip Indian chil­dren of their cul­tur­al her­itage. They lat­er suf­fered from alco­holism and neglect­ed Mr. Honie and his sib­lings. Mr. Honie first tried alco­hol at age 5 and pro­gressed to hero­in and meth by the time he was a teenager.

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News

Aug 21, 2024

City in Oklahoma Agrees to Pay $7.15 Million to Glynn Simmons, Exonerated After 48 Years in Prison

On August 14, the Associated Press report­ed that the city of Edmond, Oklahoma agreed to pay $7.15 mil­lion to Glynn Simmons, the longest-incar­cer­at­ed inno­cent per­son in the United States. Mr. Simmons spent 48 years in prison, includ­ing two years on death row, before he was released last July. Mr. Simmons was offi­cial­ly exon­er­at­ed by a judge in December 2023 and received $175,000 from the state of Oklahoma, the max­i­mum amount allowed for wrong­ful con­vic­tions under state law. Officials…

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News

Apr 08, 2024

Ohio’s Attorney General’s Report Describes Death Penalty as Enormously Expensive” and Broken” in 2023 Capital Crimes Report

At a time when faith in society’s insti­tu­tions is at an all-time low, the fail­ure of the cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment sys­tem could be Exhibit A,” con­cludes the annu­al Capital Crimes Report issued by by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. The Report high­lights numer­ous prob­lems with its bro­ken” cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem, includ­ing the enor­mous­ly expensive”…

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News

Nov 14, 2023

$9.1 million wrongful conviction settlement for Pennsylvania death row exoneree Walter Ogrod

Death-row exoneree Walter Ogrod’s fed­er­al law­suit against the City of Philadelphia and mem­bers of the Philadelphia Police Department was set­tled for $9.1 mil­lion on November 3, 2023. Mr. Ogrod, who was exon­er­at­ed in 2020 after 23 years on death row, was ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed in 1996 based on a coerced con­fes­sion and false tes­ti­mo­ny from jail­house infor­mants in a case fur­ther taint­ed by police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and inad­e­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion at tri­al. In a statement confirming…

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News

Jul 18, 2023

Ohio Joins Fifteen Other States Without an Execution in 5 Years

Today marks the five-year anniver­sary of Ohio’s last exe­cu­tion, which took place on July 18, 2018. Ohio now joins 15 oth­er states with­out an exe­cu­tion in the past five years. Although there is no for­mal mora­to­ri­um, Governor Mike DeWine has issued sev­er­al reprieves due to con­cerns about the lethal injec­tion pro­to­col and the dif­fi­cul­ty the state has had obtain­ing lethal injec­tion drugs. Ohio has exe­cut­ed 56 peo­ple in the mod­ern death penal­ty era, plac­ing it 8th over­all in the number of…

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