SALT LAKE CITY, June 14 (UPI) -- U.S. death penalty cases cost states much more than other homicide prosecutions, studies show, and some say that's reason enough to abolish capital punishment.
Financially strapped California spends $125 million a year to maintain about 700 death row inmates, at a cost of $90 a day per inmate versus $34 for the general prison population, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Monday.
Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, says a switch to permanent imprisonment would free up monies for investigation of more unsolved homicides.
"There is no evidence that (the death penalty) deters murders," Minsker said. "What does deter murders is catching killers and taking them off the streets."
A Utah group says similar expenses are weighing down other states.
Additional litigation costs and housing expenses came to $4.2 million per death sentence in New Jersey, Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty says, and $4.26 million per execution in Kansas.
The complexity of death-penalty law is responsible for much of the expense, experts say. A defendant must have two experienced lawyers and two separate trials, one to determine guilt then another decide a sentence.
Few facing the death penalty have money to hire lawyers for an often-expensive appeals process, so taxpayers are left to foot the bill, the Tribune said.
