Did you know that capital punishment is more costly than life imprisonment? Most assume because it is limiting their life, it lessens the cost of their living, although it is quite the opposite.
How? Why? The answer is simple, legal costs. Our fifth amendment guarantees us the right of due process, “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” This refers to fair procedures. Because of the seriousness of the death penalty, it requires a thorough process.
To start with, legal costs are high. Majority of people on death row cannot afford their own attorney, so the state must assign a public defender to represent them. In addition, we must consider the operation cost of the prosecution, the state’s team. Overall, pre-trial cost, jury selection, trial, and appeals are the most significant within this process.
Take into consideration the cost of incarceration because according to Death Penalty Information Center, “Death-row prisoners spend more than a decade awaiting appeal decisions and/or their execution.”
The State of Texas has the highest number of executions in the United States. It is estimated that each death penalty case cost about $2.3 million to taxpayers, this is three times the amount a sentence of life imprisonment would cost. Oklahoma also has a high number of executions, with the most capital punishments per capita, with a death penalty cost being 3.3 times more than a non-capital case. It was also revealed by The Oklahoman, that the state of Oklahoma pays a doctor $15,000 per execution.
This does not include the cost of training, which has a payout of $1,000 per day. Within the time span of five months, a doctor received a total of $131,000.
We often hear the argument in favor of the death penalty because taxpayers do not want to pay to keep the inmate alive.
However, now that you know it would be cheaper to keep them alive, does this change your opinion?