The Cost of Capital Punishment: A New California Study
By Lauren Forbes
In a new study, a senior judge and law professor examine rising costs of the death penalty in California. As the LA Times reports, without major reforms, they conclude, capital punishment will continue to exist mostly in theory while exacting an untenable cost. The study reveals that the death penalty costs California $184 million per year.
The examination of state, federal and local expenditures for capital cases, conducted over three years by a senior federal judge and a law professor, estimated that the additional costs of capital trials, enhanced security on death row and legal representation for the condemned adds $184 million to the budget each year.
The study’s authors, U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell, also forecast that the tab for maintaining the death penalty will climb to $9 billion by 2030, when San Quentin’s death row will have swollen to well over 1,000.
In their research for “Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle,” Alarcon and Mitchell obtained California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records that were unavailable to others who have sought to calculate a cost-benefit analysis of capital punishment.
The bottom line is that unless profound reforms are made by lawmakers who have failed to adopt previous recommendations for rescuing the system, Alarcon and Mitchell find, capital punishment will continue to exist mostly in theory while exacting an untenable cost.
A fact that might surprise some is that a death penalty prosecution costs up to 20 times as much as a life-without-parole case.
Federal judges find fault with about 70% of the California death row prisoners’ convictions and send them back to the trial courts for further proceedings, the report noted. That could make the state vulnerable to charges of denying inmates due process, the authors warned.
The report also says the corrections department and the Legislative Analyst’s Office failed to honestly assess and disclose to the public what 30 years of tough-on-crime legislation and ballot measures actually cost.
“We hope that California voters, informed of what the death penalty actually costs them, will cast their informed votes in favor of a system that makes sense,” the report concludes.
