A new report from the Washington Death Penalty Assistance Center reviews the effi­cien­cy of Washington State’s death penal­ty sys­tem. The report includes an overview of Washington’s statute and an expla­na­tion of the dif­fer­ences between cap­i­tal and non-cap­i­tal cas­es, demon­strat­ing why cap­i­tal cas­es require sig­nif­i­cant­ly greater resources. The authors report that:

o Of death penal­ty cas­es that com­plet­ed the appeals process, 81% were over­turned after errors were found. When those cas­es were tried a sec­ond time, not one of the inmates received a death sen­tence.

o For cas­es between 1999 and 2003, on aver­age a death penal­ty tri­al cost twice ($432,000) as much as a non-death penal­ty mur­der tri­al ($153,000).

o From the arrest of the defen­dant through sen­tence, death penal­ty cas­es take longer (20 months) than non-death penal­ty cas­es (15 months). Appellate review for non-death penal­ty cas­es lasts an aver­age of two years; death penal­ty reviews last sev­en.

o Since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in Washington, four cas­es result­ed in exe­cu­tions; three of those four inmates gave up part of their appeal. Only one case result­ed in an exe­cu­tion after all review was exhaust­ed, which took 11 years.

The rever­sals result­ed from a vari­ety of errors, includ­ing errors by tri­al judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and defense lawyers. The rever­sals were not attrib­ut­able to one iden­ti­fi­able fac­tor, and the authors con­clud­ed that they are due to sys­temic prob­lems with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. They note that Washington State has spent mil­lions of dol­lars, numer­ous years, and a sig­nif­i­cant amount of resources on this flawed sys­tem.

Mark A. Larranaga and Donna Mustard, Washington’s Death Penalty System: A Review of the Costs, Length, and Results of Capital Cases in Washington State (2004) Read the report. See Costs.

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