As you can see, the number of executions happening today is ridiculously high and unnecessary.
In the past, capital punishment had solely been used in the South. Now the death penalty has grown into a national phenomenon. There are more people on death row now then there has ever been before. Capital punishment cases are the longest cases and require the most amounts of resources for both the prosecution and defenses. One thing is true for our judicial system; Time is money. Cost figures for Texas provided by Dan Cutrer are estimates made by two Texas counties. These counties estimated the cost of a capital trail at between $400,000 and $600,000. Subtracting the cost of a non-capital murder trail ($75,000) from the median of these estimates, it will be about $425,000 to try each capital defendant. Assuming that juries will pass a death sentence in 80% of all capital trials, and that the appeal courts will continue to invalidate about 30% of all death sentences, we can assume that about 50% of all capital trials will result in an actual execution; so the actual cost of each execution comes in at around $850,000. Instead, if this were invested productively, at a conservative 5% rate of return, that sum would yield $45,000 per year; more than enough to support a "lifer- in jail indefinitely, with enough money left over to go some distance toward hiring an additional jail guard or police officer (Capital Punishment: Facts pg 1-2). Capital punishment is hurting our economy at a time that we need all the help we can get. Budgets are being cut all across the country including education; millions of dollars are being wasted. And for what, revenge? .
3.
Another aspect of cost that bothers me can be summed up in a saying I heard a while ago. "He without the capital gets the punishment."" Poor people who are facing the death penalty must rely on public funds to make sure they are competently represented.