Freud Kay Death Penalty

Although having the death row may bring the victims closer, The cost of death vs. life in prison is irradical. Prisoners who do not go through the death penalty process only costs $740,000. If the prisoner went through the death penalty process, it would cost more than $1.26 million. If you were too make the process of the death penalty longer, than they would cost more than $90,000 more each year that they are on trial. Since most death procedures now a days are through lethal

Some may be shocked to be informed that capital punishment actually costs more than life in prison; that is without parole. Many would figure that the costs would be less for the death penalty because of the food, place of living for the prisoners, etc., but quite frankly, it costs more for a prisoner to be punished to death rather than to having life in prison (Hyden). Some state’s taxes differ but for the state of California, capital punishment costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year (Bushman). Additionally, the taxpayers of California spend $250 million per execution (Bushman). According to the nonpartisan state legislative analyst’s office, the average cost of imprisoning an inmate was around $47,000 per year in 2008-09. In comparison, the death penalty can lead to an additional $50,000 to 90,000 per year, according to the studies found (Ulloa). In more studies, they have estimated the taxpayers to spend $70 million per year on incarceration, plus $775 million on additional federal legal challenges to convictions, and $925 million on automatic appeals with the initial challenges to death penalty cases

Although keeping someone in a prison may cost a lot, sentencing someone to death is not cheap as well. It has actually been proven that the death penalty is more expensive than a prison sentence. This is because the trails for death penalties are long, and very complicated. In order to go through with the death penalty you need to have more experts, double the amount of attorneys and there will be a trial for guilt and a separate one for punishment. The criminal on death row is also held in a high security prison (Top Ten Pros and Cons). Though the death penalty may sound simple, it is much more complicated currently then it was multiple years

There were many studies that were done in May 2012 that show in some states there was a significant cost up to $232 million per year for someone to remain on death row. Someone not on death row, only a life sentence, costs an average of $11.5 million per year. The largest cost is associated before the trial begins and during the trial. Even if all appeals were banned and extinguished, the death penalty would still cost a whole lot more than any of the other alternative sentences. If a prosecutor seeks the death sentence, they have to go through two phases of conviction – conviction phase first, then a sentencing phase. And then each trial usually has some special motions and then has to allow for extra time for the jury selection process. More costs are involved with the investigative side when the prosecution is seeking the death penalty. When there is any other verdict other than death, then there are usually a lot more costs involved for a retrial, and in turn, the sentence usually ends up as life in prison.

The monetary expense to taxpayers is much more than if one was kept in prison for life. Generally the public does not understand that executing one death sentence runs 2-5 times more than housing a criminal in prison for the rest of their life. There never-ending appeals, jurors have to be paid extra and there has to be a special prosecutor among many other things. Some prisoners sit on death row from 15 to 20 years while their appeals drag on in court. It takes a considerable amount of finances for all of the court services needed in a capital punishment case. Is that money that we can afford to waste?

The primary purpose of the criminal justice system is to protect society. All features of the system; detaining delinquents, trials, and punishments all have costs. Reduction in any part of the criminal justice system can potentially result in a harmful society. The question most asked about the death penalty is, “Why should honest, hardworking taxpayers, have to pay for murderers for the rest of their life instead of executing them?” Actually the death penalty is the most expensive part off the system. According to Dr. Ernest Gross, a Creighton University economics professor, who conducted a study in August 2016, the death penalty cost an average 23.2 million more per year than alternative sentences (Gross). The study found that states with the death penalty spend about 3.54% of overall state budgets on court, corrections and other criminal justice functions associated with the death penalty, while states without the death penalty spend about 2.93% on those functions (Gross). The death penalty is more expensive than life without parole because the constitution requires an extensive and complex judicial process for capital crimes. This is to ensure that innocent men and women are not executed for crimes they did not

With all of the special lawyers, court dates, prison cells and maintenance, a death penalty case can cost millions of dollars. Like a lot of things, capital punishment is paid for with tax dollars. Cases with the death penalty can cost upwards of 1.7 million dollars while cases without it are usually about 740,000 dollars. Maintaining death row prisoners can also bring costs up immensely. One of the most severe instances of these high costs is California. Every year it costs California 180 million dollars more to maintain death row prisoners than it does to maintain LWOP prisoners. They have put thirteen people to death from 1973 until now, and each case has cost 137 million dollars. A 2011 study showed that California has spent four billion dollars on capital punishment since 1976, and that has only grown higher. This is only one of the horrendous examples of our tax dollars at work. Do we really want our hard earned money going towards the killing of what might be innocent

Firstly, the death penalty is a very expensive process with a lot of time and resources being pulled. In the state of Texas, it cost $2.3 Million per execution, which is the same cost to put that person in a maximum-security prison under solitary confinement for 40 years (Cary). This is completely absurd that the death penalty is even thought to be a better option, especially since the person is most likely not to be in solitary confinement for 40 years. Assuming the person on death row is around the age of nineteen by the time they would reach that price of $2.3 million they would be lucky to be still alive. To put the money being used into a much larger perspective in the state of California taxpayers can pay anywhere from $63 million to $114 million a year on the death penalty which is more than it would cost to put them in prison

    Sadly, many people do not know that it actually takes more tax paying dollars to put someone to death rather than leave them to rot in prison for the rest of their life. According to the Death Penalty information center “The average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932.” This being nearly 8 times the cost of a case where the death penalty is not involved. The united states of america is already in debt that continues to climb because of our increasing deficit every year. In fact, in california alone since 1978-2012 the cost of the death penalty have totaled over 4 billion dollars. This is added up from the pretrial and trial costs along with appeals and incarceration costs. The fact that the cost

Death Penalty supporters say it is cheaper to kill the convict rather than keep them alive but contrary to that belief it is not. Even though each day it cost the tax payers $55.09 which is roughly $20,108 a year (Hurley), this is nothing compared to the legal fees that the inmate racks up leaving you and I the tax payers to pick up the tab. For an inmate that is death row it cost $68,000 in the due to observation of guards all hours of the day compared to the $38,000 to watch them if they are only on a life sentence (Hurley).

Many studies have been conducted to the find the truth about the cost of executions versus the cost of life in prison. Pro-execution supporters state that by carrying out executions thousands of tax dollars are saved. This, in fact, is not necessarily correct. There is much research that proves that executions are far more expensive

The cost of the death penalty compared to the life sentence is excessive. Sending someone to jail and letting them die of natural causes is way cheaper than executing them. According to the Los Angeles Times (Williams, 2011) the death penalty cost Californians $184 million a year. Over 20 years, the state would save more than $2.34 billion if they actually sentenced everyone on death row to life in prison. It costs 20 times more for an execution than a life-without-parole case with the cost of attorneys being $300,000 more to represent a person on death row than someone with a life sentence charge. Along with jury selection of capital cases being 3-4 weeks longer and costing $200,000 more and with the heightened security at execution adding $100,663 with many other expenses. The least expensive death penalty trial costs $1.1 million more than the most expensive life-without-parole case. Making lifetime imprisonment the more sensible option cost wise.

The death penalty costs americans less money to use, instead of otherwise using life in prison. One point that supports this, is the overall cost of supporting a man in prison. The amount is stated in an article when it says,“Assuming a cost increase of a conservative 2% per annum the costs come in at over $3 million for 50 years detention, rising to $5.5 million if a 4% cost increase”(Anderson). A man in prison will end up costing around $3 million for 50 years. However the next point shows how expensive the death penalty is. The biggest part of the death penalties costs are the appeals, however even with the appeals the death penalty is cheaper, an articles talks about appeals when it states,”Records obtained by the Bay Area News Group in California show that the appeal costs for the last two men executed in the state were $1.76 million”(“Death penalty information center”).

I learned that it can take decades before the person who is convicted to death before they are killed since they are given multiple appeals to try to get the death sentencing off the table and to at least get life in prison without the chance of parole. I never really thought much about that cost that goes into sending someone to death. As we discussed in class having the death penalty is very taxing on the tax payers because of all the costs that goes not only to sending the person to the chair or paying for the injection, but for the entire process that goes on prior to the death of that person. An interesting thing we learned in class was that it was more expensive to send someone to death row than it is to have a prisoner in jail for life. According to the article Take a hard look at the real cost of the death penalty written by Jan Pudlow in The Florida Bar News, he quotes Rex Dimming, who is the chief assistant public defender of the 10th Judicial Circuit in Bartow saying “He estimated that Florida

My opponents may believe the death penalty is a very expensive type of penalty, but that information is not true. Recently NBC news explains that most sources on the cost of the death penalty are very biased. The states calculate the amount of the death penalty depending on if the inmates will spend their lives on death row, meaning that it would cost around 3.1 billion dollars. If the process of the death penalty was a lot faster than the price of the death penalty would also be a lot less (To execute or not to execute). Tax money is what is really costing the most out of the imprisonments. 25% of our taxes goes towards prisons and prisoners. Infact the average amount of tax money collected for one prisoner is about $31,286, therefore the average yearly price for all the prisoners is about 39 billion dollars (Costa). Meaning that life imprisonment is a lot more money than the death