If the death penalty cost so much why do we have it?

Answer 1

Well that's a tough one to answer. Most European countries have abandoned the death penalty for its high cost. Even in the US it is still going down. Within maybe the next twenty years the death penalty will be removed from the US justice system.

Answer 2

It is because the government needs to pay for the technology that they use to do the death penalty.

Another View Totally disagree with the first answer. The reason for the cost is the expensive and prolonged court battles that must be fought against the persons and organizations that are aniti-death penalty.

Answer 3

The cost of the death penalty is so high because if you imprison a prisoner, then you have to pay for his prison cell costs, food and water supplies, health costs if he gets sick etc. Instead if you just use the capital punishment, then that's the end of the story. Additionally, the electric chair in USA is costs a lot because the amount of volts that chair need is a whopping high number.

Answer 4

Legal costs: Almost all people facing the death penalty cannot afford their own attorney. The state must assign them two public defenders, and pay for the costs of the prosecution as well.

Pre-trial costs: Capital cases are far more complicated than non-capital cases. Experts will probably be needed on forensic evidence, mental health and the social history of the defendant.

Jury selection: Because of the death penalty question, jury selection in capital cases is much more time consuming and expensive.

Trial:Death penalty trials can last over four times longer, requiring juror and attorney compensation, in addition to court personnel and other related costs.

Incarceration: Most death rows involve solitary confinement in a special facility. These require more security and other accommodations as the prisoners are kept for 23 hours a day in their cells.

Appeals: To minimize mistakes, every inmate is entitled to a series of appeals. The costs are borne at taxpayers' expense. These appeals are essential because some inmates have come within hours of execution before evidence was uncovered proving their innocence.

Answer 5

"The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California's current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually."

Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present (death penalty) system to be $137 million per year.

The cost of the present system with reforms recommended by the Commission to ensure a fair process would be $232.7 million per year.

The cost of a system in which the number of death-eligible crimes was significantly narrowed would be $130 million per year.

The cost of a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty would be $11.5 million per year.

The average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, about 8 times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty is not sought. A study found that those defendants whose representation was the least expensive, and thus who received the least amount of attorney and expert time, had an increased probability of receiving a death sentence. Defendants with less than $320,000 in terms of representation costs (the bottom 1/3 of federal capital trials) had a 44% chance of receiving a death sentence at trial. On the other hand, those defendants whose representation costs were higher than $320,000 (the remaining 2/3 of federal capital trials) had only a 19% chance of being sentenced to death. Thus, the study concluded that defendants with low representation costs were more than twice as likely to receive a death sentence.

The average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, about 8 times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty is not sought. A study found that those defendants whose representation was the least expensive, and thus who received the least amount of attorney and expert time, had an increased probability of receiving a death sentence. Defendants with less than $320,000 in terms of representation costs (the bottom 1/3 of federal capital trials) had a 44% chance of receiving a death sentence at trial. On the other hand, those defendants whose representation costs were higher than $320,000 (the remaining 2/3 of federal capital trials) had only a 19% chance of being sentenced to death. Thus, the study concluded that defendants with low representation costs were more than twice as likely to receive a death sentence.