There are major news articles examining capital punishment costs in Indiana and Kansas.
"Seeking death penalty in Indiana is expensive, often unsuccessful," is the title of Mark Wilson's report in the Evansville Courier & Press.
Seeking the death penalty in Indiana has become an expensive proposition, and one that often doesn't end with execution.
Only 16 percent of Indiana's death penalty cases — 30 out of 188 — filed from 1990 through 2009 ended in death sentences, according to the Indiana Public Defender Council.
Such statistics have given death penalty foes a solid economic argument, and even supporters of the death penalty are calling for reforms to control skyrocketing defense costs often born by local and state governments.
Vanderburgh County's record is as mixed as the state's. In the last two decades the county spent more than $800,000 defending death penalty cases, each more expensive than the last.
Only one of the county's last five death penalty trials resulted in an execution.
And:
Although Indiana reimburses counties for half of the defense costs for death penalty cases, those costs can still be crushing.
Indiana began partially reimbursing counties for public defender costs in felony and death penalty cases in 1990. Since then, Vanderburgh County footed the bill to defend four of the five death penalty cases in that time and for the direct appeals of all five. The family of one defendant, Paul McManus, paid his trial cost.
However, only the trial of Matthew Eric Wrinkles, convicted of a 1994 triple homicide, ended in an execution. Vanderburgh's remaining death penalty cases — Daniel Wilkes, Paul McManus, Vincent Prowell and Timothy Anderson — have either resulted in prison sentences or are still under appeal.
Also:
The average cost of a death penalty trial and direct appeal was more than $450,000, according to a fiscal impact report done by the Indiana Legislative Services Agency in 2010. That is more than 10 times the cost of a life without parole trial, which averaged $42,658.
In addition, the cost of filing a death penalty case, investigating it and working on it until a plea agreement is reached was still more than twice the cost of a life without parole trial.
The report found that of 26 death penalty cases between 2000 and 2007, seven actually went to trial, resulting in six death sentences and one life without parole sentence. The majority — 19 cases — ended in plea agreements for life without parole sentences.
In Kansas, the Topeka Capital-Journal reports, "Kahler trial costs Osage County big bucks." It's written by Steve Fry.
To try capital murder defendant James Kraig Kahler starting Monday, Osage County residents are paying higher taxes.
Tiny Osage County, population 16,386, will pay more than $200,000 to stage the three-week jury trial of Kahler, County Commissioner Ken Kuykendall said. The $200,000 is specifically for the trial. In addition, another $60,000 was spent on upgrading the courtroom where the trial will take place.
Kahler, 48, is charged with capital murder in the deaths of four people; four alternative counts of first-degree murder; and one count of aggravated burglary of the Burlingame home of Dorothy Wight, a slaying victim whose home was the homicide scene.
Kahler is charged in the shootings that took place Nov. 28, 2009. Besides Wight, 89, the victims were Kahler's wife, Karen Kahler, 44; and daughters Lauren, 16, and Emily, 18. Wight was Karen Kahler's grandmother.
"We budgeted $200,000 last year, and I think every bit of it will be spent," Kuykendall said.
The total costs include a major overhaul of the large courtroom on the third floor of the Osage County Courthouse, jury expenses, expense to pay for beefed-up courthouse security, and the cost of out-of-state witnesses testifying during the trial.
And:
The last murder trial in Osage County was the cold-case slaying of Jack Hanrahan, 12, who disappeared in 1979 from Topeka, then was found dead just inside Osage County. On Feb. 10, 2000, an Osage County jury acquitted Thomas A. Berberich, then 46, of premeditated first-degree murder.
Thanks to Donna Schneweis for forwarding the Kansas article.
Related posts are in the cost index.
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