Professor Shaun Martin neatly sums up the fiscal realities of capital punishment in California @ his California Appellate Report blog - "People v. Burgener (Cal. Supreme Ct. - May 7, 2009)" (Posted Tuesday, May 19, 2009):
"I'm telling you this right now: Michael Burgener will die in prison, but it won't be from an antiseptic needle in the arm. At this point, it'll be 40+ years after the conviction before there'd actually be an execution. And the justice of such a penalty -- though understandable in all its individual components -- seems far from clear.
Burgener shot and killed a 7-11 clerk an emptied the cash register of $50. He's not a nice man. He deserves to live the remainder of his life behind bars, and that's what will happen. Why -- at this point -- we're spending the millions and millions of dollars I'm sure is being spent to keep this one going is beyond me.
I know the counterarguments. They're not frivolous. I appreciate them. I truly do. But this one, in my view, you let go."
Haven't other studies shown that the cost of appeals to the death penalty sentence is actually more expensive to the public than a life in prison sentence?
Posted by: Joe | May 21, 2009 at 01:15 PM
study after study suggests it's far more expensive to prosecute a capital trial, and push the condemned through the appellate process to death, than it is to convict, sentence, and warehouse a lwp forever ... [See, Justin P. Brooks, "The Dire Wolf Collects his Due While the Boys Sit by the Fire: Michigan Cannot Afford to Buy into the Death Penalty," 13 Thomas M. Cooley L. Rev 877 (1996)]
Posted by: brian | May 21, 2009 at 02:27 PM