The Costs of the Death Penalty in the United States Capital punishment has
existed in the US since colonial times. Since then, more than 13,000 people have
been legally executed. Today, there are only twelve states which do not have the
death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as
Washington D.C. The locations of these states are important because they
illustrate the lack of ideological homogeneity usually associated with
geographical regions of the US. The methods of execution are as varied as their
locations. The word “capital” in capital punishment refers to a person’s
head, as, historically, execution was performed by cutting off the head. Today,
there are generally five methods of execution used in the US. Hanging, the gas
chamber, lethal injection, the electric chair and the firing squad are all used,
some notably less than others. In 1930, the Bureau of Justice Statistics began
keeping stats on capital punishment nationwide. From 1930 until 1967, 3859
people were executed in the US, 3334 for murder (www. uaa). That’s an average
of almost 105 people per year, three out of five of which were executed in the
South. By 1967, all but ten states had laws for capital punishment. Nationally,
strong pressure was steadily placed on the federal government by those opposed
to capital punishment which resulted in an unofficial moratorium on executions
until 1976. Officially, the Supreme Court ruled capital punishment
unconstitutional in 1972. In Furman v. Georgia,408 U.S. 238 (1972), a 5-4
Supreme Court decision ruled that CP laws in their present form were
“arbitrary and capricious” and constituted cruel and unusual punishment in
violation of the Eighth Amendment as well as due process of the Fourteenth
Amendment (www.aclu). In its decision, the Court voted that the death penalty
statutes were vague and ambiguous, providing little guidance to juries in
deciding whether to apply the death penalty. This caused states which still
wanted the death penalty to revise their legislation to satisfy the Supreme
Court’s objection to the arbitrary nature of execution. State governments
tried two new strategies to be more specific and direct in death penalty trials:
guided discretion and the mandatory death penalty. In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S.
153 (1976) among others, the Supreme Court gave sentencing courts the right to
impose sentences of death for specific crimes and allowed a two-stage
(“bifurcated”) trial (www.cpa). In the first stage, the guilt or innocence
of the defendant is established, while in the second stage, the jury or the
judge (depending on the state) determines the sentence. Mandatory death penalty
for specific crimes, on the other hand, was deemed unconstitutional because of
cases such as Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976). These rulings lead
to the modification of each state’s statutes regarding the death penalty (www.uaa).
The moratorium ended and executions resumed in January 1977. Capital punishment
remains, as it ahs always been, controversial and heavily debated on both
philosophical (moral) grounds as well as on a strictly financial basis. Both
sides, however, seem to be able to crunch the numbers and make their arguments
in a way which supports their claims. Today, one of the major points of debate
about the death penalty is that of cost. Some of those who support the death
penalty defend it as a cost-effective alternative to life in prison. Those who
oppose capital punishment conversely say that it costs a significant amount more
to kill someone than to incarcerate them for life. What tends to occur is that
advocates of the death penalty focus the debate on post trial costs,
particularly incarceration, while opponents focus on the trial cost itself. Time
Magazine (as of 12/95) found that, nationwide, the average cell cost is $24,000
per year and the average maximum-security cell cost is $75,000 per year (www.prodeathpenalty).
Illustrating how statistics are made to fit the agendas, the Death Penalty
Information Center (DPIC), a leading anti- death penalty organization, claims
that, in Texas, a state known for its liberal use of the death penalty, it would
cost three times as much to execute someone than to incarcerate them for forty
years at the maximum cell cost (www.essential). The DPIC cites a cost of $2.3
million to execute in Texas. $75,000 per year for maximum-security costs
multiplied by forty years equals $3.0 million. This use of numbers and math add
to the controversy by enabling both sides to give strong, if somewhat wrong,
arguments. Capital trials are much larger, more tedious, and much more expensive
at every step than other murder trials. Pretrial motions, expert witness fees,
jury selection and the necessity of two trials per Gregg v. Georgia make capital
trials extremely costly, even before the appeals process begins. Also, if the
person is given a sentence of life in prison, the state pays the cost of the
incarceration on top of the expensive trial. A single trial can mean near
bankruptcy, tax increases, and the laying off of personnel such as police
officers. New Jersey, for example, laid off more than 500 police officers in
1991 (www.essential). At the same time, it was implementing a death penalty
which would cost an estimated $16 million per year, more than enough to have the
same number of officers at a salary of $30,000 per year. The irreversibility of
the death sentence requires courts to follow heightened due process in the
preparation and course of the trial. The death penalty costs California $90
million annually beyond the ordinary costs of the justice system- $78 million of
that is incurred at the trial level (www.essential). The high price of execution
is most deeply felt in the counties responsible for both prosecution and defense
of capital defendants. For example, Okanogan County Commissioners in Washington
delayed pay raises for the county’s 350 employees, decided not to replace 2 of
4 public- health nurses and put a hold on updating computers across the county
because of anticipated death penalty trial costs (www.essential). In Imperial
County, California, as well as Lincoln County, Georgia, the county commissioners
refused to pay the bill for defense costs of men facing the death penalty,
citing that the costs would bankrupt the county. Commissioners are more and more
frequently sent to jail for failure to pay. Similar to what occurred in New
Jersey, in Sierra County, California, authorities had to cut police services to
pursue death penalty prosecutions (www.religioustolerance). Right now, there are
more people on death row than at any time in the nation’s history. The number
of states having death penalty as an option continues to increase, while the
list of states actually carrying out executions has grown to over twenty with
four new states added each year. With the enormous costs to try, convict,
incarcerate, handle appeals and execute these inmates, many people are searching
for alternate means of dealing with these criminals. There are several possible
alternatives to the death penalty. Some are taken from current state practices,
some from practices used in the international community, and even those once
deemed unconstitutional, which may deserve a second look. The first of those
alternatives is community policing. Community policing is a strategy for
utilizing police officers not just as people who react to crime, but as people
who solve problems by becoming an integral part of the neighborhoods they
protect. Opponents of capital punishment say that such programs area a cost-
effective way to deter crime. The programs work best when governments can afford
to add officers, rather than taking from existing numbers, leaving other areas
unattended. Another alternative would be to reinstate the mandatory death
sentences for specific crimes, which was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme
Court in 1976. If mandatory minimums and “3 strikes” are constitutional and
are used for offenses such as drugs, which are relatively minor to crimes such
as murder, than maybe mandatory death sentences should be given a second look.
Imposition of the death penalty is extremely rare. Since 1967, there has been
one execution for every 1600 murders, or .006%. As the New York Times noted in
1994, even if U. S. executions were multiplied by a factor of 10, the would
still constitute an infintesimal element of criminal justice (www.cpa). There
have been approximately 500,000 murders and 358 executions from 1967- 1996.
Mandatory death sentences would cut down severely on crime and cost. Mandatory
death sentences would be more effective if there was also a limit on the number
of appeals which someone on death row was entitled to. The average inmate on
death row is there for approximately 10 years (www.prodeathpenalty), racking up
countless appeals, which are extremely expensive. These appeals, on top of
incarceration costs, make the death penalty as expensive as it is. Although
appeals are a mandate for those on death row in order to cut down on the risk of
executing the innocent, a limit of perhaps 6 or 7 years should probably do the
trick. The most popular alternative is, morally and financially, is life without
parole. This is shown to be cheaper than execution. Although, as previously
mentioned, the numbers can be fudged somewhat to attain a certain favorable
appearance. In a 1993 survey, it was reported that most Americans would oppose
the death penalty if convicted murderers were sentenced to life without the
possibility of parole under any conditions. Life without parole is the
alternative which is most accepted internationally. Today, either by law or in
practice, all of Western Europe and most of the entire world has abolished the
death penalty. The United Nations General Assembly wrote a formal resolution
calling for the abolition of capital punishment worldwide. Some countries, such
as Italy, refuse to extradite accused murderers to the US because of the
possibility that they might be executed. Canada’s homicide rate has dropped
27% since they abolished the death penalty in 1976. The international community
opposes the United States’ use of execution, especially of those under the age
of 18. Only Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the US execute
people for crimes committed as a minor. Of these nations, the US has executed
more juveniles (9) since 1990 than all the others combined (www.religioustolerance).
At the end of 1997, there were about 3222 prisoners on death row in 34 states (www.essential).
Although alternatives for capital punishment are there or could be implemented
into legislation, recent laws have expanded the number of crimes for which
capital punishment can be applied. Public approval of the death penalty remains
high nationwide. The public tends to view execution as a deterrent to crime,
whether or not it actually is. This is important because politicians use the
death penalty as a symbolic stance for being tough on crime. Capital punishment
will continue to be controversial as long as it exists because the very nature
of the policy polarizes people’s views and allows for wide interpretation of
its legal, moral and financial legitimacy. As public policy, it is constantly
being revised, updated and legislated. As is any piece of public policy in the
US, there will be no radical change to the process, just slow incremental
changes to this controversial issue.

Bibliography1. American Civil Liberties Union Freedom Network www.aclu.org/library/case_against_death.html
2. Capital Punishment: Arguments for Life and Death www.cpa.ca/cjbs/1996/ful_ogloff.html
3. Capital Punishment; the Death Penalty www.religioustolerance.org/execute.html
4. Death Penalty Information Center www.essential.org/dpic/dpic.r08.html 5.
Death Penalty and Sentencing Information www.prodeathpenalty.com/DP.html 6.
Justice Center Web Site www.uaa.alaska.edu/just/death/history.html