That's the title of a report in today's Idaho Press-Tribune. It's written by Sharon Strauss. LINK
Placing an offender on death row in Idaho is more expensive than housing that inmate for life.
A costly and lengthy appeals process makes the death penalty anywhere from two to five times more expensive to administer than a life sentence, BSU criminal justice professor Michael Blankenship said.
Only one person in Idaho has been executed in the past 52 years.
And:
Possible innocence and the cost of lengthy trials and appeals are the main reasons why many death-eligible cases like Roberts' end up in a plea agreement,
"It's cheaper and at least you can reverse a sentence if you find out the person was wrongfully convicted," Boise State University criminal justice professor Blankenship said.
And, placing an offender on death row in Idaho is actually more expensive than housing that inmate for life.
"The death penalty is anywhere from two to five times more expensive than a life sentence," Blankenship said, because of costly and lengthy appeals.
"More and more (prosecutors) are saying we can't bear the cost of this. They use the death penalty as a lever in a life sentence," Blankenship said. Emotional reasons also motivate plea bargains in capital cases. " Blankenship said. "A lot of times prosecutors and the family want closure, they don't want this to drag on 15 or 20 years, so they don't want a death sentence. It may be that the family wants to move on."
"I think it's the best under the circumstances," Roberts' defense attorney Scott Fouser said about the agreement. "Mr. Roberts did not want to put the Young family through (a) trial or his family through (a) trial."
Death penalty sentences often languish in Idaho, Blankenship said, "because we're not pushing a judge to set a date for the execution to be carried out. Everybody now is kind of in this legal limbo. They're in various stages of appeal or there's no great hurry to carry out the execution."
Had it gone to trial with the state pushing for capital punishment, Roberts' case would have likely lasted a month, Bujak said, and the costs of litigating the appeals would accumulate.
Of the 16 offenders on death row in Idaho, one — Lacey Sivak — has been there since December 1981 — years before Blankenship's freshmen students were even born.
"The fastest way to leave death row is to have your conviction overturned or appealed," Blankenship said. "The second way is to die of natural causes."
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