New Jersey panel suggests ending the death penalty

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New Jersey Panel Suggests An End To The Death Penalty

 

January 4, 2007 5:21 p.m. EST

 

Matthew Borghese - All Headline News Staff Writer

 

Trenton, NJ (AHN) - The New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission has released its report on capital punishment in the Garden State.

 

The Commission, tasked by Governor Jon Corzine to review the state's procedures and methods for execution, found capital punishment should "be abolished and replaced with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, to be served in a maximum security facility."

 

According to the report, "There is no compelling evidence that the New Jersey death penalty rationally serves a legitimate penological intent," and that "The costs of the death penalty are greater than the costs of life in prison without parole."

 

"There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency. The penological interest in executing a small number of persons guilty of murder is not sufficiently compelling to justify the risk of making an irreversible mistake. The alternative of life imprisonment in a maximum security institution without the possibility of parole would sufficiently ensure public safety and address other legitimate social and penological interests, including the interests of the families of murder victims."

 

Governor Corzine issued a statement after the report was published, saying, "As someone who has long opposed the death penalty, I look forward to working with the Legislature to implement the recommendations."

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"The costs of the death penalty are greater than the costs of life in prison without parole."

 

I have seen this written the other way around. Could somebody please give me a definitive dollar amount for how much each situation costs?

[Balta1701]

"The costs of the death penalty are greater than the costs of life in prison without parole."

 

I have seen this written the other way around. Could somebody please give me a definitive dollar amount for how much each situation costs?

No. It depends on each particular state and the way the law is in that state, but in general, I think the consensus is it's quite a bit more expensive to put someone to death.

 

The Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission met recently to review the final draft of a year-long study on the state's death penalty. The draft report indicates that race of the victim plays a role in death penalty sentencing. The report included a cost analysis that indicates it costs the state 35-37% more to have the death penalty than it would if life without parole were the most severe punishment available. Governor Frank O'Bannon asked the Commission to review the state's death penalty system after innocent inmates were discovered and freed from death rows in other states. The final report is due to be released in December. (Indianapolis Star, 11/9/01)

(too old for a link, go to Lexis if you want the paper.

 

The most comprehensive death penalty study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million more per execution than the a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of life imprisonment (Duke University, May 1993). On a national basis, these figures translate to an extra cost of over $1 billion spent since 1976 on the death penalty. The study,"The Costs of Processing Murder Cases in North Carolina" is available on line at www-pps.aas.duke.edu/people/faculty/cook/comnc.pdf.

 

Report to Washington State Bar Association regarding costs

 

* At the trial level, death penalty cases are estimated to generate roughly $470,000 inadditional costs to the prosecution and defense over the cost of trying the same case as an aggravated murder without the death penalty and costs of $47,000 to $70,000 for court personnel.

 

* On direct appeal, the cost of appellate defense averages $100,000 more in death penalty cases, than in non-death penalty murder cases.

 

* Personal restraint petitions filed in death penalty cases on average cost an additional$137,000 in public defense costs.

http://www.wsba.org/lawyers/groups/committ...blicdefense.htm

 

The Office of the Public Defender estimated that, given its current caseload of 19

death penalty cases (as of August 2006), elimination of the death penalty would result in a cost

savings of $1.46 million per year. In testimony to the Commission, Joseph Krakora12,

Director of Capital Litigation in the Office of the Public Defender, noted that the office incurs

additional costs in capital murder trials for pretrial preparation and investigation; pretrial

motions; jury selection (which takes four to six weeks in a capital case as opposed to one or

two days in a noncapital case); additional staff attorneys (because the office provides two

attorneys, rather than one, in capital cases) and pool attorneys (outside counsel hired when there is a conflict of interest that prevents the office from using staff attorneys); the penalty

phase trial (which does not occur in noncapital cases); the mitigation investigation (a social

history investigation of the defendant’s background, which provides mitigating evidence for

the penalty trial); enhanced costs for appeals (since more issues are raised and the courts

conduct a more searching inquiry in an appeal of a defendant who faces death); enhanced costs

for transcripts; proportionality reviews; and post-conviction relief.

The Department of Corrections estimated that eliminating the death penalty would

save the State $974,430 to $1,299,240 per inmate over each inmate’s lifetime. The

department’s figures were based on its estimate that the cost of housing an inmate in the

Capital Sentence Unit of the New Jersey State Prison (death row) totals about $72,602 per

year. This is $32,481 more per year than the $40,121 cost of housing an inmate in the general

population at the New Jersey State Prison, which is a maximum security institution. The

department calculated that inmates enter the Capital Sentence Unit at an average age of 32,

and estimated that, since no inmate has yet been put to death, each inmate would serve 30 to

40 years within the Unit.

From the NJ report. http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/committees/njdeath_penalty.asp