{"id":983,"date":"2011-09-20T09:40:36","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T13:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=983"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:28:08","slug":"death-be-not-cheap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/09\/20\/death-be-not-cheap\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Be Not Cheap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Wilson\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Death is in the news!\u00a0 Hot on the heels of Rick Perry\u2019s\u00a0avowed affection<\/a>\u00a0for the death penalty, the U.S. Supreme Court\u00a0agreed to hear the appeal<\/a>\u00a0of Duane Buck, a Texas man so close to execution he had already eaten his last meal.\u00a0 Buck does not dispute his conviction, but rather disputes his death sentence.\u00a0 During the sentencing phase of his trial, a prosecution expert told the jury that death, and not life in prison, was appropriate because black people are more likely to commit future violent crimes.<\/p>\n

<\/span>If that seems excessive, keep in mind that it\u2019s only one example of the strained calculus that goes into death sentences.\u00a0 Here\u2019s another one: juries for trials in which death is a sentencing option are already biased because jurors who could not sentence to someone to death are excused with cause.<\/p>\n

California was all set to join the sixteen other states that have abolished the death penalty, but last month, the California Senate\u00a0killed a bill<\/a>\u00a0that would have put death penalty abolition on the November 2012 ballot for voters to approve through our state\u2019s wacky initiative process.<\/p>\n

In place of the initiative comes Taxpayers for Justice,\u00a0which has a new angle<\/a>\u00a0when it comes to outlawing the death penalty.\u00a0 In these days of austerity, cash-strapped states might want to consider something even more radical than\u00a0legalizing marijuana to make ends meet<\/a>: outlawing executions.\u00a0 The death penalty is many times more expensive than even incarceration for life.\u00a0\u00a0In Texas, for example<\/a>, the average death penalty case costs the state $2.3 million, about three times more than it costs to imprison a single person for 40 years.\u00a0 That\u2019s thanks to the high cost of appeals, which death row inmates are graciously afforded.\u00a0 It\u2019s also attributed to the death penalty being a poor man\u2019s game; very, very rarely are wealthy or even middle-class people sentenced to death, meaning that the state is paying for their defense.<\/p>\n

Since 1978, when the state\u2019s death penalty statute was altered to make the death penalty constitutional, California has executed only thirteen people.\u00a0 Total cost? Possibly $4 billion, according to\u00a0a study published over the summer<\/a>\u00a0by Ninth Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School Professor Paula M. Mitchell.\u00a0 That\u2019s given an estimate of $308 million in security costs and legal fees for each of the thirteen executions. The cost for death row itself is possibly $184 million each year (or, in other words, over three million new school textbooks. Just sayin\u2019).<\/p>\n

The strained explanations, massive spending, and\u00a0doublethink<\/a>\u00a0on the death penalty reflect what Occam knew only too well: we just\u00a0shouldn\u2019t\u00a0have a death penalty. How odd,\u00a0as Slate contributor Dalia Lithwick points out<\/a>, that conservatives like Gov. Perry don\u2019t trust the government to build a freeway correctly but possess unequivocal confidence in its ability to end the life of the right guy, every time. Want to cut some state budgets?\u00a0 End the death penalty.\u00a0 It\u2019s moral\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0pragmatic!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Wilson\u00a0 Death is in the news!\u00a0 Hot on the heels of Rick Perry\u2019s\u00a0avowed affection\u00a0for the death penalty, the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-fR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}