In many states, cost is slowly killing death penalty

[Robbien]

Source: Chicago Trib

<snip>

. . .

Several states, including New Mexico, have introduced measures to abolish the death penalty, many of them citing its costs. In Colorado, a bill would take money usually spent on capital cases and use it to help clear unsolved cases. In Kansas, a legislator wants to use money for capital cases to close a budget shortfall.

. . .


New Jersey cited costs as one factor when it abolished the death penalty in 2007, and a commission that studied the death penalty in Maryland recently cited costs as well

. . .

In California, legislators are wrestling with the cost of maintaining the nation's largest Death Row even though the state has executed only 13 inmates since 1976. At the same time, officials are debating construction of a new $395 million Death Row prison many lawmakers say the state cannot afford.

And in Louisiana, the Orleans Parish district attorney's office has considered filing for bankruptcy protection after it was ordered to pay $15 million to John Thompson. He sued prosecutors after he was freed from Death Row; a jury found prosecutors had engaged in misconduct.

"This is a time where if you have a government program and it's not producing a lot but it's costing a lot, then it's ripe for examination," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center. "It's not like libraries, which you need, or other crucial programs. This is a program that's not really producing."

. . .

Death penalty cases can have an outsized effect in smaller counties that tend to have smaller budgets. There, a case can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars — close to $1 million if the issues are particularly complicated — and force local officials to cut programs just to fund the prosecution. Prosecutors say they have to take that into consideration, although it is not the only factor.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-death-penalty-costsmar08,0,5719335.story

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Finally, some good coming out of this big stinking pile of a financial disaster the Bush Regime left us.

[ZombieHorde]

1. "Finally, some good coming out of this"

I agree, thanks for the silver lining. Many will be sad, since they love violence so dang much, but I am glad the death penalty may be coming to an end.

[closeupready]

3. Unfortunately, not necessarily. What's to stop them from merely cutting their costs?

And you KNOW states like TX will do that. Feed them ground road kill and such.

[Ex Lurker]

6. In Canada the max sentence is 25 years for capital cases

with automatic parole after 2/3 of the sentence, so the most anybody serves is 16 years.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. There is no such thing as a "capital case" in Canada

And the end of a prisoners ineligibility period does not mean automatic parole in Canada or anywhere else. A prisoner with an ineligibility period of 25 years can apply for early release under the "faint hope clause" but the number of prisoners released is minimal.

[tbyg52]

2. Good. nt

[nichomachus]

4. Wow -- you'd think this is something WalMart could tackle

First food, then pharmacy, then health clinics and now "cut-rate executions." The new WalMart greeter:

[dbt]

5. The death penalty is a complete waste of time and money.

It has, demonstrably, not the least deterrent effect.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. There probably isn't any point trying in California

since it will be restored by yet another fucking ballot initiative almost immediately, the cost of administering the death penalty system is obscene, even before a single appeal a single case can bankrupt both the prosecutor and public defender in any given jurisdiction.