Economics of the Death Penalty

Maintaining a death penalty system is a far more expensive way of dealing with violent crime.

It wastes millions of dollars that could be more effectively used to prevent crime.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but it is actually much more expensive for a state to have a system which seeks and carries out death sentences than it would be to seek other sentences and then house a defendant in prison for the rest of his natural life.

There are three reasons:

1) A capital trial is much longer than a murder trial in which the death penalty is not sought

2) It is necessary to afford capital defendants with extraordinary legal assistance through trial and many stages of appeals

3) Most death penalty prosecutions eventually result in life sentences anyway, after most of the expense is incurred. Millions of dollars are spent prosecuting capital cases that could be saved and used for more effective crime-prevention, drug treatment, or victim's services programs

Average costs of a death penalty case in the United States is 2 million dollars.

Average costs of a non-death penalty case in the United States is $750,000.00.

Average costs of a death penalty case in our neighbor state Kansas is $1,260,000.00.

Average cost of a non-death penalty case in Kansas is $520,000.00.

80% of the costs of a death penalty case is at the trial level. 20% of the costs are at the appellate level.

Costs at the trial level include increased costs of investigation (police and defendant's investigation); increased prosecutor's fees, defense attorney's fees for at least two attorneys, increased court costs, increased security costs, increased incarceration costs, increased number of potential jurors, and the ongoing general costs at the state and county level for death penalty cases.