If death penalty is abolished, what next?

Economics behind Death Row
The biggest savings, by far, would come from reduced legal costs. Because of drawn-out appeals, a typical death penalty case can cost from $1 million to $3 million, well above the typical cost of a lengthy life imprisonment. On average, it costs roughly $25,000 to house an inmate for a year, though maximum-security confinement can be more expensive.

A government-appointed commission in New Jersey said abolition of the death penalty would save the public defender’s office $1.46 million per year in legal costs and enable Death Row inmates to be confined elsewhere at roughly half the current cost. The Ohio public defender’s office has 20 attorneys in its death penalty division, with a budget for 2008-09 totaling $4.6 million.

Studies in other states have suggested potential savings of many millions of dollars annually if the death penalty were replaced by life sentences. A Duke University study, for example, concluded that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million more per execution than a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of life imprisonment.

California is a case unto itself, with 666 inmates on Death Row — far more than any other state. The average wait for execution is 17 years, and since 1978 there have been more suicides on Death Row (14) than executions (13). If executions ceased, the state could abandon proposals to build a new Death Row for more than $300 million to replace antiquated facilities at San Quentin, which opened in 1852.

Texas also has a big Death Row — 371 inmates. Because the state has conducted two-dozen or three-dozen executions annually in recent years, it arguably would have to spend more on long-term confinement if the death penalty were abolished — but those extra costs would likely be outweighed by less spending on legal fees.

Death penalty opponents say the savings nationwide could shift to programs that would curb violent crime — more police on streets, more drug rehabilitation and mental health services to address problems that affect many criminals, better child-protection services to curtail the abuse that many killers experienced in their youth.

“Most Americans are under illusion that the death penalty is less costly than keeping someone in prison for life,” said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, director of Amnesty International’s campaign against the death penalty. “But it’s not a good use of resources. The money saved could be used for better criminal justice.”

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, acknowledged that capital punishment cases generally do cost more than other cases because of the lengthy legal reviews. It’s worth it for the sake of justice, he said.

“Whatever we need to spend on a death penalty case, there’s no moral justification for spending less,” he said.

Lines drawn, sides defined  
One of the most bitterly disputed aspects of the death penalty is whether it deters violent crime.

Opponents insist it does not, noting that most states without the death penalty — as well as many U.S. allies abroad — have lower crime rates than the states which conduct the most executions. Opponents also cite the recent exonerations of scores of Death Row inmates, based on DNA tests, and say abolition is the only sure way to avoid executing innocent people.

Death penalty supporters have their own favored statistics, including several recent studies by economists suggesting that each execution prevents multiple murders.

“If those findings are right, capital punishment has a strong claim to being not merely morally permissible, but morally obligatory _ above all from the standpoint of those who wish to protect life,” wrote law professors Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago and Adrian Vermeule of Harvard in the Stanford Law Review last year.

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