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For cash-strapped justice system, death is less certain than taxes
<span style="font-weight: bold">U.S. states find jail may be more cost effective than executing prisoners</span>
DEBORAH HASTINGS
Associated Press
March 4, 2009 at 4:10 AM EST
After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the highest U.S. court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong: money.
Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.
So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favour of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.
"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "the hanging judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.
It is 10 times more expensive to kill inmates in an electric chair or by other means than to simply jail them, an ex-judge says.
Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. What changed a mind so set on the ultimate punishment?
<span style="font-weight: bold">California's legendarily slow appeals system, which produces an average wait of nearly 20 years from conviction to fatal injection -- the longest in the United States. Of the nine convicted killers he sent to death row, only one has died. Not by execution, but from a heart attack in custody.</span>
"Every one of my cases is bogged up in the appellate system," said Mr. McCartin, who retired in 1993 after 15 years on the bench.
"It's a waste of time and money," said the 82-year-old, self-described right-wing Republican whose sonorous voice still commands attention. "The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families."
<span style="font-weight: bold">In 2007, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1972.</span>
Out of 36 remaining states with the death penalty, there are at least eight with pending legislation that could end it - <span style="font-weight: bold">Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas </span>-- an uncommon marriage between eastern liberals and western conservatives, built on economic hardship.
"This is the first time in which cost has been the prevalent issue in discussing the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a data clearinghouse that favours abolition of capital punishment.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Death penalty trials are more expensive for several reasons: They often require extra lawyers; there are strict experience requirements for attorneys, leading to lengthy appellate waits while capable counsel is sought for the accused; security costs are higher, as well as costs for processing evidence - DNA testing, for example, is far more expensive than simple blood analyses.</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">After sentencing, prices continue to rise. It costs more to house death row inmates, who are held in segregated sections, in individual cells, with guards delivering everything from daily meals to toilet paper.</span>
In California, home to the country's biggest death row population at 667, it costs an extra $90,000 (U.S.) a year per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death - an additional expense that totals more than $63.3-million annually, according to a 2008 study by the state's Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
The panel, which agreed with California Chief Justice Ronald George that the state's death penalty system was "dysfunctional," blamed exorbitant costs on delays in finding qualified public defenders, a severe backlog in appellate reviews and a high rate of cases being overturned on constitutional grounds.
The costs of capital punishment weigh heavily on legislators facing Solomon-like choices in these dismal economic times.
In Kansas, Republican State Senator Caroline McGinn is pushing a bill that would repeal the death penalty effective July 1. Kansas, which voted to suspend tax refunds, faces a budget deficit of nearly $200-million. Ms. McGinn urged fellow legislators "to think outside the box" for ways to save money. According to a state survey, capital cases were 70 per cent more expensive than comparable non-death-penalty cases.
In New Mexico, Governor Bill Richardson recently said his long-time support of capital punishment was wavering -- and belt-tightening was one the reasons. As the state tries to plug a $450-million budget shortfall with cuts to schools and environmental agencies, a bill to end executions has already passed the House. The state supreme court has ruled that more money must be given for public defenders in death penalty cases, but legislators have yet to act.
In Maryland, a 2008 Urban Institute study said taxpayers forked out at least $37.2-million for each of five executions since the death penalty was re-enacted in 1978. The survey, which examined 162 capital cases, found that simply seeking the death penalty added $186-million to prosecution costs. Governor Martin O'Malley, who disdains the death penalty on moral and financial grounds, wants to repeal it.
For cash-strapped justice system, death is less certain than taxes
<span style="font-weight: bold">U.S. states find jail may be more cost effective than executing prisoners</span>
DEBORAH HASTINGS
Associated Press
March 4, 2009 at 4:10 AM EST
After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the highest U.S. court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong: money.
Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.
So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favour of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.
"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "the hanging judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.
It is 10 times more expensive to kill inmates in an electric chair or by other means than to simply jail them, an ex-judge says.
Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. What changed a mind so set on the ultimate punishment?
<span style="font-weight: bold">California's legendarily slow appeals system, which produces an average wait of nearly 20 years from conviction to fatal injection -- the longest in the United States. Of the nine convicted killers he sent to death row, only one has died. Not by execution, but from a heart attack in custody.</span>
"Every one of my cases is bogged up in the appellate system," said Mr. McCartin, who retired in 1993 after 15 years on the bench.
"It's a waste of time and money," said the 82-year-old, self-described right-wing Republican whose sonorous voice still commands attention. "The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families."
<span style="font-weight: bold">In 2007, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1972.</span>
Out of 36 remaining states with the death penalty, there are at least eight with pending legislation that could end it - <span style="font-weight: bold">Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas </span>-- an uncommon marriage between eastern liberals and western conservatives, built on economic hardship.
"This is the first time in which cost has been the prevalent issue in discussing the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a data clearinghouse that favours abolition of capital punishment.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Death penalty trials are more expensive for several reasons: They often require extra lawyers; there are strict experience requirements for attorneys, leading to lengthy appellate waits while capable counsel is sought for the accused; security costs are higher, as well as costs for processing evidence - DNA testing, for example, is far more expensive than simple blood analyses.</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">After sentencing, prices continue to rise. It costs more to house death row inmates, who are held in segregated sections, in individual cells, with guards delivering everything from daily meals to toilet paper.</span>
In California, home to the country's biggest death row population at 667, it costs an extra $90,000 (U.S.) a year per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death - an additional expense that totals more than $63.3-million annually, according to a 2008 study by the state's Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
The panel, which agreed with California Chief Justice Ronald George that the state's death penalty system was "dysfunctional," blamed exorbitant costs on delays in finding qualified public defenders, a severe backlog in appellate reviews and a high rate of cases being overturned on constitutional grounds.
The costs of capital punishment weigh heavily on legislators facing Solomon-like choices in these dismal economic times.
In Kansas, Republican State Senator Caroline McGinn is pushing a bill that would repeal the death penalty effective July 1. Kansas, which voted to suspend tax refunds, faces a budget deficit of nearly $200-million. Ms. McGinn urged fellow legislators "to think outside the box" for ways to save money. According to a state survey, capital cases were 70 per cent more expensive than comparable non-death-penalty cases.
In New Mexico, Governor Bill Richardson recently said his long-time support of capital punishment was wavering -- and belt-tightening was one the reasons. As the state tries to plug a $450-million budget shortfall with cuts to schools and environmental agencies, a bill to end executions has already passed the House. The state supreme court has ruled that more money must be given for public defenders in death penalty cases, but legislators have yet to act.
In Maryland, a 2008 Urban Institute study said taxpayers forked out at least $37.2-million for each of five executions since the death penalty was re-enacted in 1978. The survey, which examined 162 capital cases, found that simply seeking the death penalty added $186-million to prosecution costs. Governor Martin O'Malley, who disdains the death penalty on moral and financial grounds, wants to repeal it.
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