"Citing Cost, States Consider End to Death Penalty," is Ian Urbina's report in today's New York Times. Here are two extended excerpts:
When Gov.
Martin O’Malley
appeared before the Maryland Senate last week, he made an
unconventional argument that is becoming increasingly popular in
cash-strapped states: abolish the death penalty to cut costs.
Mr. O’Malley, a Democrat and a Roman Catholic who has cited
religious opposition to the death penalty in the past, is now arguing
that capital cases cost three times as much as homicide cases where the
death penalty is not sought. “And we can’t afford that,” he said, “when
there are better and cheaper ways to reduce crime.”
Lawmakers in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire have made
the same argument in recent months as they push bills seeking to repeal
the death penalty, and experts say such bills have a good chance of
passing in Maryland, Montana and New Mexico.
Death penalty opponents say they still face an uphill battle, but they are pleased to have allies raising the economic argument.
Efforts to repeal the death penalty are part of a broader trend in
which states are trying to cut the costs of being tough on crime.
Virginia and at least four other states, for example, are considering
releasing nonviolent offenders early to reduce costs.
The economic realities have forced even longtime supporters of the death penalty, like Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, to rethink their positions.
Mr. Richardson, a Democrat, has said he may sign a bill repealing
capital punishment that passed the House last week and is pending in a
Senate committee. He cited growing concerns about miscarriages of
justice, but he added that cost was a factor in his shifting views and
was “a valid reason in this era of austerity and tight budgets.”
Capital cases are expensive because the trials tend to take longer,
they typically require more lawyers and more costly expert witnesses,
and they are far more likely to lead to multiple appeals.
In New Mexico, lawmakers who support the repeal bill have pointed
out that despite the added expense, most defendants end up with life
sentences anyway.
That has been true in Maryland. A 2008 study by the Urban Institute,
a nonpartisan public policy group, found that in the 20 years after the
state reinstated the death penalty in 1978, prosecutors sought the
death penalty in 162 felony-homicide convictions, securing it in 56
cases, most of which were overturned; the rest of the convictions led
to prison sentences.
Since 1978, five people have been executed in Maryland, and five inmates are on death row.
Opponents of repealing capital punishment say such measures are
short-sighted and will result in more crime and greater costs to states
down the road. At a time when police departments are being scaled down
to save money, the role of the death penalty in deterring certain
crimes is more important than ever, they say.
And:
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal
Foundation, an organization in Sacramento that works on behalf of crime
victims, called the anticipated savings a mirage. He added that with
the death penalty, prosecutors can more easily offer life sentences in
a plea bargain and thus avoid trial costs.
But Eric M. Freedman, a death penalty expert at Hofstra Law School,
said studies had shown that plea bargaining rates were roughly the same
in states that had the death penalty as in states that did not.
“It makes perfect sense that states are trying to spend their
criminal justice budgets better,” he said, “and that the first place
they look to do a cost-benefit analysis is the death penalty.”
States are looking elsewhere as well.
Last year, in an effort to cut costs, probation and parole agencies
in Arizona, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey and Vermont reduced or
dropped prison time for thousands of offenders who violated conditions
of their release. In some states, probation and parole violators
account for up to two-thirds of prison admissions each year; typical
violations are failing drug tests or missing meetings with parole
officers.
As prison crowding has become acute, lawsuits have followed in
states like California, and politicians find themselves having to
choose among politically unattractive options: spend scarce tax dollars
on expanding prisons, loosen laws to stem the flow of incarcerations,
or release some nonviolent offenders.
The costs of death penalty cases can be extraordinarily high.
The Urban Institute study of Maryland concluded that because of
appeals, it cost as much as $1.9 million more for a state prosecutor to
put someone on death row than it did to put a person in prison. A case
that resulted in a death sentence cost $3 million, the study found,
compared with less than $1.1 million for a case in which the death
penalty was not sought.
In Kansas, State Senator Carolyn McGinn introduced a bill this month
that would abolish the death penalty in cases sentenced after July 1.
“We are in such a dire deficit situation, and we need to look at things
outside the box to solve our budget problems,” said Mrs. McGinn, a
Republican. Kansas is facing a budget shortfall of $199 million, and
Mrs. McGinn said that opting for life imprisonment without parole
rather than the death penalty could save the state over $500,000 per
capital case.
"Lawmakers Cite Economic Crisis in Effort to Ban Death Penalty" is by Cristina Corbin for Fox News.
A Kansas jury last week recommended that the man who raped and killed 19-year-old Jodi Sanderholm two years ago be put
to death -- a verdict that could be the state's last death sentence because of the country's dire economic straits.
Kansas
Republican state Sen. Carolyn McGinn, who has proposed a bill to
overturn the death penalty in the state, is one of a growing number of
legislators nationwide who are citing drained resources and severe
budget cuts as a reason to ban capital punishment.
"We're
looking at any way we can to save money moving forward in the state of
Kansas," McGinn told FOXNews.com. "This will save significant money --
money that could be used toward education programs and toward community
corrections programs," she said.
Colorado,
Kansas, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, Nebraska and New Mexico are
among those states actively considering abolishing executions as a way
to cut costs. But in other states, including Texas and California, the
debate has gained little ground.
The
proposal has infuriated many who say the death penalty cannot be decided in dollars and cents.
And:
A 1992 estimate in Texas -- which has had more executions than any
other state since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty
in 1976 -- showed that death row cases cost taxpayers $2.3 million per
case, compared to $750,000 for life sentence cases.
McGinn cited a 2003 state audit that reported the median cost for death penalty cases
in Kansas was $1.26 million through execution, while non-death penalty cases cost $740,000 through the end of a prisoner's
incarceration.
McGinn said legal fees related to death row cases make up a large expense for states, which often have
to pay the costs of both the prosecution and defense in capital punishment trials.
"When
you add all those costs up and weigh it against that individual being
isolated and locked up for the rest of his or her life, it's a much
greater cost," said McGinn. She said capital murder trials, on average,
cost 16 times more than non-death penalty cases. The appeals cost 21
times more, she said.
More coverage is in the cost index.
