State Studies on Time Costs

Colorado

A 2013 study pub­lished in the University of Denver Criminal Law Review, found that Colorado LWOP cas­es required an aver­age of 24.5 days of in-court time, while the death-penal­ty cas­es required 147.6 days.¹

The study of the cost of the death penal­ty in Colorado revealed that cap­i­tal pro­ceed­ings require six times more days in court and take much longer to resolve than life-with­out-parole (LWOP) cas­es. In mea­sur­ing the com­par­a­tive time it takes to go from charg­ing a defen­dant to final sen­tenc­ing, the study found that LWOP cas­es took an aver­age of 526 days to com­plete; death cas­es took almost 4 cal­en­dar years longer – 1,902 days. The study found that even when a death-penal­ty case ends in a plea agree­ment and a life sen­tence, the process takes a year and a half longer than an LWOP case with a tri­al. The authors not­ed that select­ing a jury in an LWOP case takes about a day and a half; in a cap­i­tal case, jury selec­tion aver­ages 26 days.

Idaho

The 2013 study showed the Idaho State Appellate Public Defender’s office spent about 44 times more time on a typ­i­cal death penal­ty appeal than on a life sen­tence appeal.²

A lim­it­ed study of the costs of the death penal­ty in Idaho found that cap­i­tal cas­es are more cost­ly and take much more time to resolve than non-cap­i­tal cas­es. One mea­sure of death-penal­ty costs was reflect­ed in the time spent by attor­neys han­dling appeals. Capital cas­es with tri­als took 20.5 months to reach a con­clu­sion while non-cap­i­tal cas­es with tri­als took 13.5 months. The study was com­mis­sioned by the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee and per­formed by the Office of Performance Evaluations. The study also not­ed how infre­quent­ly the death penal­ty was applied in Idaho: of the 251 defen­dants who were charged with first-degree mur­der since 1998, the death penal­ty was sought against 55 (22%) of them, and just 7 were sen­tenced to death. More than half of the 40 peo­ple sen­tenced to death since 1977 have received less­er sen­tences after their death sen­tences were overturned.

Maryland

The 2009 study showed that ​“the num­ber of attor­neys ded­i­cat­ed to cas­es in which a death notice is filed is twice (two) the num­ber assigned to a no-death notice case (one). Thus, for many court events, about twice as much time is spent in prepa­ra­tion.”³ 

This study focus­es specif­i­cal­ly on the cost impli­ca­tions of the death penal­ty in Maryland, address­ing lim­i­ta­tions in pri­or research by employ­ing robust method­olo­gies, includ­ing mul­ti­vari­ate mod­els and propen­si­ty score analy­sis. Findings indi­cate a sig­nif­i­cant addi­tion­al cost asso­ci­at­ed with fil­ing a death notice, esti­mat­ed at over one mil­lion dol­lars. The analy­sis encom­pass­es var­i­ous stages of case pro­cess­ing, includ­ing pre-tri­al, tri­al, sen­tenc­ing, post-con­vic­tion, and appeals, pro­vid­ing a com­pre­hen­sive under­stand­ing of the finan­cial bur­dens imposed by cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion. For exam­ple, in the pre­tri­al phase, the per­cent­age of time on a case before a death notice is filed is 50% com­pared to 15% when no death notice is filed. Similarly, the time spent on a case 90 days pri­or to tri­al is 50% with a death notice, but only 25% with­out it. This indi­cates that the pres­ence of a death notice sig­nif­i­cant­ly impacts the time spent prepar­ing a case. The esti­mat­ed total cost of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions in Maryland exceeds $170 mil­lion, under­scor­ing the sub­stan­tial finan­cial impli­ca­tions of main­tain­ing the death penal­ty, with impli­ca­tions for pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions and con­sid­er­a­tions of jus­tice system reform.

North Carolina

The 2009 study focus­ing on North Carolina showed that ​“the extra time uti­lized in the cap­i­tal cas­es amounts to 63,526 hours.”⁴

This study pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis of the poten­tial sav­ings from abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty in North Carolina, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on time costs. Despite a decrease in death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions, the finan­cial bur­den of the death penal­ty remains sub­stan­tial. The analy­sis indi­cates that elim­i­nat­ing the death penal­ty could save the state near­ly $11 mil­lion annu­al­ly, allow­ing resources to be real­lo­cat­ed to oth­er crim­i­nal cas­es and jus­tice sys­tem activ­i­ties. It explores how mur­der cas­es might unfold dif­fer­ent­ly with­out the death penal­ty and exam­ines the uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ing its impact on mur­der rates. The study focus­es on the dif­fer­ence between Cash Costs and In-kind Costs — oth­er­wise known as mon­e­tary costs and time costs of the death penal­ty. The author notes that ​“Private defense attor­neys spent near­ly three times as many hours if a mur­der case pro­ceed­ed cap­i­tal­ly.” Additionally, ​“Each extra day in the court­room, for the tri­al or for a hear­ing, requires the pres­ence of a judge and oth­er court offi­cers and staff. The extra 3.2 days per case mul­ti­plies up to 691 days over the two years.” Finally, the study dis­cuss­es the finan­cial impli­ca­tions of abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty, empha­siz­ing the need to con­sid­er both finan­cial and eth­i­cal aspects in the debate. References to stud­ies on deter­rence and cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis fur­ther sup­port the analysis’s findings.