Ending death penalty could save US millions: study

 by Lucile Malandain– Tue Oct 20, 2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Even when executions are not carried out, the death
penalty costs US states hundreds of millions of dollars a year, depleting
budgets in the midst of economic crisis, a study released Tuesday found.

"It is doubtful in today's economic climate that any legislature would
introduce the death penalty if faced with the reality that each execution
would cost taxpayers 25 million dollars, or that the state might spend
more than 100 million dollars over several years and produce few or no
executions," argued Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty
Information Center and the report's author.

"Surely there are more pressing needs deserving funding," he wrote, noting
that execution was rated among the least effective crime deterrents.

In just one death penalty trial "the state may pay one million dollars
more than for a non-death penalty trial. But only one in every three
capital trials may result in a death sentence, so the true cost of that
death sentence is three million dollars," the study's author said.

"Further down the road, only one in ten of the death sentences handed down
may result in an execution. Hence, the cost to the state to reach that one
execution is 30 million dollars," Dieter added in the report entitled
"Smart on Crime."

The center's goal of ending executions may still be an uphill battle.

The report comes just a week after a new poll found that 65 percent of
Americans still favor the death penalty.

Legal in 35 of the 50 US states and used regularly in about 12 or so, the
death penalty has been reconsidered recently in 11 states, largely because
of the high costs associated with its use.

Colorado came close to eliminating execution but New Mexico was the only
state to abolish it, in March.

"There is no reason the death penalty should be immune from
reconsideration, along with other wasteful, expensive programs that no
longer make sense," Dieter stressed, noting that most US states that pay
to maintain a system to execute inmates have in the past three decades put
to death only a handful of convicted criminals.

"The same states that are spending millions of dollars on the death
penalty are facing severe cutbacks in other justice areas. Courts are open
less, trials are delayed, and even police are being furloughed," Dieter
said.

In Pennsylvania, 200 police posts sit unfilled, and in New Hampshire
trials were put on hold for a month to save money.

Dieter says that keeping execution while reducing its costs is not
realistic. If less money is spent on appeals, he argues, the risk of
executing an innocent person will increase.

He said that ultimately, execution does not deter crime as its supporters
hope. Capital punishment has been abolished in most western democracies,
and after it was eliminated in the US state of New Jersey in 2007, the
state saw its murder rate decline.

Dieter cites a poll of 500 local police chiefs, which was paid for by the
DPIC and released on Tuesday, showing support for ending capital
punishment.

The survey found that the police chiefs see the death penalty as the least
effective tool in deterring crime. They suggest more efficient use of
resources -- such as boosting funding for drug and alcohol abuse programs.