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I have posted the North Carolina study here many times. It's older now but basically it was 1 million to do the trial and lock someone up for life. It was 2 million to do the trail and actually execute someone. Give or take on the money
Technically, I don't think you can "prove" that innocent people have been executed using math alone. Common sense, sure. Math, no.
Comparative costs for various states
Through the work of organizations such as the "Innocence Project" and many law enforcement organizations in preserving blood evidence, many people convicted during the 60's and 70's were unequivocally proven to be innocent by later DNA testing (when the technology became available). That rate was about 1/10 of all executions.B-Deep said:
It's probably more, but nobody is ripping off anybody.
Sure. We also have the incentive to keep as many substances criminalized as possible, sentencing ranges as ridiculously high as the 8th Amendment allows, and the percentage of people getting a public defender to the absolute minimum as consistent with Gideon.
I appreciate this link. I've never really seen before an attempt to break down the 'apples-to-apples' costs, that is, usually one side of the argument frames the numbers in a biased way to make a point. For example, sometimes the 'get rid of the death penalty' folks will take the full cost of trial, appeals, incarceration, etc for a Death Penalty case, and compare it to only, say, the cost of providing 3 square meals a day to an inmate for 40 years, and ignoring the fact that a lot of the costs are duplicated in both cases (both go to trial, both have some appeals, etc).
If you look at the sources of the studies they cite, you're looking at law reviews, state bars, departments of corrections, etc. While the authors of the website definitely have a stated agenda, the sources of the data seem to be generally reliable.
I'm not disagreeing with the data, I'd just like more info on the analysis. Like Woz pointed out, the plea bargain is off the table. So what's the added cost of a death penalty case vs. a life-without-parole case that went the full distance at trial, for example. Instead of just looking at the average of all LWOP cases. Or subtracting the second sentencing trial as a separate entity. That kind of stuff. Just a little more info on how the numbers were arrived at.
Plea bargains aren't off the table at all. Not many people will accept a plea for the death penalty, but pleas that come with life sentences are fairly common in capital cases--and they still take more time and money than a trial in a non-death penalty case.
The 1 in 10 figure is just made up. There are no cases that I know of in which an executed person has been shown to be indisputably innocent, although there are a handful of cases where the preponderance of the evidence makes it pretty likely. But not anywhere near 1 in 10.eoMMan said:
I don't necessarily doubt that stat, but it's still easily distinguishable from the standard plea bargaining process - where generally negotiations are held almost immediately (or, in reality, the prosecutor shoots off some policy plea offer and the defense attorney merely relays it to her client) and a plea bargain is struck prior to the bulk of any potential litigation. While I have only been tangentially involved in some death penalty cases, my impression, at least in my death penalty jurisdiction, is that plea bargains only result from some unforeseen weakness in the State's case and/or some mitigating factor arises that was not initially apparent. The plea bargaining isn't done with the motivation of judicial efficiency.
Per the innocence project, 312 have been exonerated.
Prior to improved forensic investigation, and back in the days of racism, it happened probably more than any of us would ever want to believe.
Among other things. If applied and used correctly the death penalty is a major deterrent. A few changes need to be made and we are off and running.
oops, you're right.
Right they were just around for the time of slavery, duels, lynchings, and blatant class and gender discrimination. A veritable utopia compared to today.
Not like any judges are going to lose their job if the dp goes away so what's it really costing?
The overwhelming percentage of the "cost" of death penalty trials is the hours logged by the state salaried attorneys. The state court reporters are also salaried employees that will be making the same amount of money whether they are recording a death penalty or non-death penalty case. Sure, there will likely be some higher costs associated with exhibits/copying in a big death penalty case and possibly even expert testimony, but that hardly accounts for the difference between housing an inmate for life at around $30,000 per year and executing someone.I just don't think that it makes much sense to count the salaries of salaried employees -- who make the same regardless of what type of penalty the case they are trying has -- as a cost of the death penalty. If a state attorney is working a high profile death penalty case, then he will certainly be preoccupied by that case -- just as he would a high profile murder case without the death penalty on the table, but the rest of the office will generally pick up that slack. I would guess it is extremely rare that a state has to hire more salaried employees to compensate for rare death penalty cases.
Unless we expect these salaried employees to be collecting those salaries while doing nothing else there is a cost!
