The death penalty and executions are financed through tax dollars. It is your money that is being used to finance the machinery of death. So think about it the next time you are at work: it is the money that you work for and earn right now that will be used to kill a person. We urge you to join us in the fight towards ending the financing of the death penalty, and by doing so, also ending the death penalty as a whole. Please read the following information and follow the links that follow it to see how you can take a stand!
If you have any questions, please contact Tony directly at:
Tony Egbuna Ford
#999075
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston, Texas 77351
U.S.A.
The Cost of the Death Penalty
Literally hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent on a response to crime which is calculated to be carried out on a few people each year and which has done nothing to stem the rise in violent crime.
Death penalty cases are much more expensive than other criminal cases and cost more than imprisonment for life.
Texas with approximately 400 people on death row, is spending an estimated $2,300,000 per case, and yet its murder rate remains one of the highest in the country.
Capital trials are longer and more expensive at every step than other murder trials. Pre trial motions, expert witness investigations, jury selection, and necessity for two trials - one for guilt or innocence, and one for sentencing - making capital cases extremely costly even before the appeals process begins. Many of these trials result in a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
A single death penalty trial can exhaust a county’s resources. Politicians singing the praises of the death penalty rarely address the question of whether a government’s resources might be more effectively put to use in other methods of fighting crime. A million dollars spent pursuing the execution of one defendant could provide far more effective long-term crime reduction: many additional police officers; speedier trials; or (drug) rehabilitation programs. In today’s political atmosphere, politicians worry about appearing soft on crime, even if soft means espousing proven methods of crime reduction.
State Judge Miron Love once estimated that if the death penalty were assessed in just 20% of Harris County cases it would cost the tax payers a minimum of $60,000,000. Judge Love remarked, "We're running the county out of money."
In a report released by the American Bar Association it was found that "the justice system in many parts of the United States is on the verge of collapse due to inadequate funding and unbalanced funding."
There is no doubt that the death penalty costs more in all the steps leading up to an execution. Everything that is needed for an ordinary trial is needed for a death penalty case, only more so:
*-more pre-trial time will be needed to prepare: cases typically take a year to come to trial
*-more pre-trial motions will be filed and answered
*-more experts will be hired
*-probably two attorneys will be appointed for the defense, and a comparable team for the prosecution, compared to one in a non-death penalty case
*-jurors will have to be individually quizzed on their views about the death penalty
*-they are more likely to be sequestered
*-two trials instead of one will be conducted: one for guilt and one for punishment
*-the trial will be longer: the cost study at Duke University estimated that death penalty trials take 2 to 5 times longer than typical murder trials
*-and then will come a series of appeals during which the inmates are held in the high security of death row.
Texas which is the nation's leader in the use of the death penalty has the largest death row and has executed almost twice as many people as the next leading state. Houston alone accounts for 10% of all people executed in the United States since 1976. Yet the murder rates in three of Texas' major cities rank among the nation's top 25 cities.
Counties bear the brunt of the costs of death penalty trials. Hard choices have to be made among the demands of providing essential services, creative crime reduction programs such as community policing, and the vigorous pursuit of a few death penalty cases.
Click on the links below to see how you can make a difference:
Statement to: Family, Friends, Loved Ones; and to the Activist/Anti-Death Penalty Community
Statement to: The Death Row Community