Of 374 aggravated murder trials, 61 death penalty cases cost an average of $2.3 million compared with $1.4 million from 313 cases that resulted in lesser punishments, a $918,896 difference or 1.7 times less, according to the study.
Without prison expenditures, the death penalty cases drop on average to $1.1 million compared to the $315,159 for the lesser sentences, which cost 3.5 times less. The report also looks at a smaller subset of cases from 2000 to 2013.
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