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Cathleen Allison / Associated Press File
The execution chamber at Nevada State Prison in Carson City is rarely used, partly because many on death row die of natural causes before appeals are through.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009 | 2 a.m.
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- Court rejects petition of man facing death row (1-9-2009)
- Nevada carries out few death penalty sentences (2-18-2004)
- With eye to cost, death penalty study sought (12-29-2008)
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Forget how you feel about the death penalty — in this economy, in this legislative session, state executions are a question of cost, not conscience.
Legislators in a handful of states are attempting to halt or repeal the death penalty on the grounds that capital punishment is just too expensive. In Nevada, Assembly Bill 190 calls for a two-year moratorium on executions, during which time a study would be conducted on the fiscal effect of the death penalty. In late February, The New York Times described this purse strings-instead-of-heartstrings approach as an “unconventional argument that is becoming increasingly popular in cash-strapped states,” but failed to mention Nevada’s bill or the politicians behind it.
Objecting to the death penalty because of its price tag is actually nothing new in Nevada; it’s the economy that has changed, perhaps enough to advance an old argument.
Nevada legislators have been concerned about the cost of executions since at least 2002, when their subcommittee to study the death penalty first recommended pursuing a grant to finance a study of the costs of capital cases. That recommendation was not followed, however.
In the past few sessions there haven’t been any substantive challenges to the death penalty, said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, who was a member of the death penalty subcommittee seven years ago and is one of the moratorium bill’s sponsors this session.
“We are in a fiscal crisis, and you would think that the cost issue would have more resonance. I hope it does,” she said.
The moratorium bill was introduced by Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks. He said his goal is to “have a rational discussion rather than an emotional discussion.”
The closest anybody in Nevada has come to understanding the per-case cost of the death penalty has been by looking at research in other states. In 2002, when the death penalty subcommittee was exploring the issue, it relied on a North Carolina report that found capital cases cost about $2.2 million more than cases in which the maximum punishment was life without parole. Since then, several new studies have emerged showing death penalty cases can cost millions more than life without parole.
Why it costs more, however, depends on whom you ask. Anti-death-penalty advocates say capital cases cost more because the stakes are higher. These cases take longer — and not by months, but years. The jury selection is more complicated, and the jury is more likely to be sequestered. More attorneys are often assigned to capital cases, and more experts are often hired to testify. In other words, the costs arise mainly during trial.
But ask people who advocate for the death penalty, such as Clark County District Attorney David Roger, and they’ll tell you capital cases really start costing taxpayers money after the death sentence is handed down. Death penalty opponents “bleed the system” with seemingly endless appeals, Roger said. If you want to save money, he added, impose sanctions on attorneys who file repetitious appeals.
Not everybody agrees with that opinion, not by a long shot. But it is a fact that appeals in death penalty cases do drag on for years. Death penalty abolitionists have long cited studies that indicate most death row defendants end up with life sentences anyway — the appeals process goes on so long that inmates die of natural causes.
Nevada juries have handed down more than 130 death sentences since 1977, and only a small fraction of those inmates have actually been executed: 12. And of those dozen executed inmates, 11 were what Nancy Hart, president of the Nevada Coalition against the Death Penalty, calls “volunteers” — people who refused to seek available appeals, people who gave up fighting for their lives.
Death penalty opponents say the millions of dollars and hours spent pursuing executions that seldom come to pass are more evidence of fiscal waste.
The Clark County district attorney’s office evaluated 36 cases with death penalty potential in 2008 and decided to seek capital punishment in 15 of them. The year before that the district attorney’s office took on 16 capital cases. Christopher Lalli, assistant district attorney in charge of the criminal division, did not know how many of these cases resulted in death convictions and said many are still being litigated.
The bill has not yet been scheduled for discussion on the legislative calendar. While it would, if passed, establish a moratorium on any pending executions, it would not prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in new cases. In other words, the moratorium will not save money spent on new capital prosecutions. The bill is merely the first step in a money-saving process — determining how much money there is to save.
Rebecca Gasca, Public Advocate for the ACLU of Nevada, says her organization would like to take the moratorium a step further, however, and ban prosecutors from even seeking capital punishment. Otherwise, she said, taxpayer money will continue to be wasted.
For death penalty opponents like Hart, the cost is actually secondary to moral and ethical concerns over capital punishment. Still, if it’s going to take talking about money, that’s what they’ll do.
“Anybody that spends any time studying the death penalty will come to believe that it has flaws,” she said. “If cost is the issue that gets them hooked in, that is a great place for them to start. The more they look, the more they’ll find the flaws.”
There is some suggestion that the cost argument might sway people who otherwise favor the death penalty. The Feb. 25 Times article noted that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a longtime supporter of capital punishment, was considering signing a bill repealing the death penalty, citing cost among his reasons and telling the paper that the economy of execution was a “valid reason in this era of austerity and tight budgets.”
But the economic argument cuts another way in Nevada, in a way that may prevent moving beyond the first step: In this era of forced belt-tightening, with a limited number of studies that can be funded every session, the state may not be willing to spend money to study money spent.
With improvements in forensic science, we should be able to cut the costs for executing miscreants that deserve it.
Whenever they print death penalty articles they should include a few examples of the crimes that got the bastards on death row in the first place.
Oh please, how much can the crap they inject really cost? I think the expense is in the appeals process - how bout this - they get ONE chance at an appeal and then it's done - and no more languishing in prison for YEARS - do just like they did to Hussein - 30 days and you're done. That's so much cheaper than paying for someone to spend the rest of their useless life in prison -
If the U.S. court of law has sentenced a criminal to death it should be carried out ASAP. This should be done in all of U.S.prison system. One execution every day until justice has been served. No more "Molly Coddling" I am sure this would free up the court system which seems indicates it is "Broken". There would more than likely less "Gang Crime". On the positive side we would need less need for prison space. All new prisoners would be housed in "Pup Tents". No more TV's or Weight Rooms. Work them from morning until night. This just a thought.
Liars figure figures lie and liberals are experts at that skill. You tell me how letting a criminal allowed to reach room temperature is more expensive then allowing the same criminal live years upon years at taxpayers expense. What you see is the results of so called journalists getting degrees at liberal left wing colleges that are all over this land of ours. Writer GET A LIFE.
Hey folks, we're forgetting one thing here. Sending people quickly to their deaths means executing innocent people. We know that innocent people have been wrongfully executed and we will never be able to bring them back. To support the death penalty - especially as the people posting here today suggest - means that you would rather kill an innocent person than allow a guilty person to live. What kind of moral code is that? Lock 'em up and throw away the key.
I am a democrat but I totally support a "quick" death penalty. I like that 30 day rule someone mentioned. That's plenty of time for appeal.
Of course we have the lawyers and their kind who say we will be executing innocent people so quick executions will never happen.
Yeah, lock em up and throw away the key so we taxpayers can feed them and give them healthcare and let them have wifes and sex for the rest of their lives. Not a bad deal in this economy is it?
To John F:
I am willing to take my chances as to whether we execute someone wrongfully.
The jury of "Peer's who found guilty have to live with that. It should end then and now.
What will the lawyers do now for a living? "I am not a "Bleeding Heart"
How many U.S. soldiers were executed wrongly buy the Iraq confortation?
The rural counties of Nevada have a defacto moratorium based upon the cost of seeking the death penalty. The taxpayers of those counties are unwilling to pay the enormous expenses of mitigation investigation, expert witnesses and litigation that must take place in a death penalty case - per dictates from the US Supreme Court - but which do not take place in cases without the death penalty.
Clark County continues to use the death penalty because DA David Roger is not called upon to account for costs incurred because of his office. At a time when essential services are being cut, school teachers are being asked to take pay cuts and the County and State are in a financial crisis, it is irresponsible to seek sentences of death instead of sentences of life without the possibility of parole.
Under former DA Stew Bell, the DA's office usually sought death in only 4 or 5 cases a year. It is outrageous that DA Roger is seeking death in 16 or 18 cases a year. Roger needs to be held fiscally accountable for this huge waste of money. Life without is enough to take these guys off the streets and to protect the community. The expense of the death penalty is great and is not worth the cost.
The claim that the death penalty costs more overall simply ignores factors on the other side. Having the death penalty available saves trial costs when a murderer pleads guilty and receives a life sentence. Without the threat of the death penalty, that case would either go to trial at considerable expense or be plea bargained in a deal that lets the murderer out to kill again someday.
A recent study by the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation showed that guilty pleas with life or long sentences are four times as common in states with the death penalty as in those without. The press release is here:
http://www.cjlf.org/releases/09-05.htm
Opponents also count as a cost of the death penalty the cost of long incarceration on death row. That is a cost of the obstruction of the death penalty. If Nevada could resolve its cases in five years, as Virginia does, that cost would drop dramatically.
If the state really wants to save money, it should fix the capital appeal process.
Excellent points kscheidegger.....overall the threat of a death penalty reduces the overall cost of dealing with major felony murder cases because more are pleaded out and therefore lawyer fees are greatly reduce which makes up the bulk of the cost of those type of cases.
It is very sad to get some balance to a story that one has to read the comments.
I am guessing the writer of the story just read some kool-aid information from anti-death penalty groups and repeated their talking points here.
This is another example of unbalance story by the Sun that is leaves out relevant information.
WAIT the COST?!?!?!?
HOW ABOUT .10CENTS FOR A BULLET OR SOME ROPE???
COME ON PEOPLE IF SOMEONE TAKES A LIFE THAN THEY SHOULD BE PUT DOWN LIKE THE DOGS THEY ARE
WE SHOULD ALSO EXPAND THE USE OF CASTRASTION FOR CHILD-MOLESTERS AND RAPISTS
THE DEATH PENATLY
IS a deterent but not when someone can get life in jail, or drag the execution out for 20-30 years than the death penatly doesnt work
This is for "ACESBET"........hope it's not you
that was "wrongfully" accused and being put to death within 30 days.I'm not for this letting them go through years of appeals either,but 30 days is so wrong.Obviously they need to set time limits and avoid all these overruns,but I hope we're abit more civilized than that.
Look up Debra Milke and you will see a woman who has been on death row in Arizona since 1991 for the murder of her own 4 yr old son in the desert - I knew her, my son played with her little boy - and she even has a myspace - so what is THIS all about? Death row inmates get to computer their life on myspace????? What in the hell is wrong with this so-called JUSTICE system?????????????
JohnF -- I'm with you on this one.
This lynch mob is too much like acesbet -- ignorant and way too free with other people's lives. I'd love to hear what they have to say when each of them suddenly finds themselves accused then ground up in the state machine.
The Innocence Project needs to be mentioned here. It has used post-conviction DNA testing to free many innocents, some of who spend decades behind bars. One small sample: http://crime.about.com/b/2005/08/02/inno...
The fact that the Innocence Project exists at all is damning proof the executive and judicial branches of this republic are incapable of self reform.
Then there's the false evidence manufactured by the likes of Fred Zane (Google "Fred Zane DNA") and his ilk, who should share the same penalties of those they helped convict. That this is a problem is shown in the National Institute for Justice report "Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial" at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/16...
The bigger problem is NOT too many uncaught criminals but too many overzealous prosecutors feeding from the attitude shown by too many here -- innocence is irrelevant to conviction. It is self-evident this country has declared war on its own citizens as shown by a higher percentage of citizens processed as criminals than any other country on the planet, except maybe China.
Far too many of you have far too much confidence in what passes for our courts. America's "just us" system is far too corrupt to be worthy of it.
Altogether now, can you say "we like our police state!"
With all the forensic science we now have it's not nearly as likely that an innocent person is going to be convicted - if they can't prove their innocence through-out a trial and still can't prove it in 30 days then the liklihood of the person being innocent is remote at best - this languishing in the prison system for 15-20 yrs or more is just plain nutz..........just like a person getting '25-life' for committing murder is nutz too - how any one gets anything less than LIFE withOUT parole (if not the death penalty) for murdering another human being is beyond me and just shows how really broken this justice system is. I also know a guy from Wisconsin who recently pleaded guilty to 'reckless homicide' of his wife that he killed and got away with it for 30 yrs. - now he pleads guilty and they sentence him according to the laws on the books 30 yrs. ago - he gets 5 YEARS (yep, count em 5 YEARS) for the 'reckless' killing of his estranged wife???????? And all that 30 yrs AFTER the fact - so he basically was able to enjoy the best years of his life (age 35-65) and now he gets 5 yrs and will probably be out in 2 or 3 (with 'good behaviour')
"if they can't prove their innocence through-out a trial and still can't prove it in 30 days then the liklihood of the person being innocent is remote at best - this languishing in the prison system for 15-20 yrs or more is just plain nutz"
THEY DON'T HAVE TO PROVE THEIR INNOCENCE! THE STATE HAS TO PROVE THEIR GUILT!
Sorry to shout, but the notion that defendants need to prove their innocence flies so much in the face of our notion of justice it's absurd.
The fact of the matter is the state wrongfully convicts people all the time.
MrVincent,
If prison is such a good deal, why aren't you clamoring to get in yourself? How'd you like to be some inmate's wife?
MAGSNY,
Nobody has ever produced any evidence to demonstrate that the death penalty deters. And even if it did, how many innocent people are you willing to execute to MAYBE deter someone from committing a murder?
The death penalty isn't about anything other than satisfying our desire for revenge. It doesn't do anything to bring the victims back to life. It serves no positive good. It is revenge, pure and simple. The problem is we sometimes take our revenge on the wrong people. Are you all so thirsty for blood that you're willing to countenance state-sanctioned execution of the innocent?
Lock 'em up and throw away the key. Life without possibility of parole. The death penalty is morally repugnant.
Mr. Nance,
Over on the other paper's web site today I notice you say it is "important for one to have the ability to prove innocence."
Tell me, how can somebody who's been executed do that, regardless of whose dime is being spent?
Looks like this is a hot topic. I am from CA and we have the largest death row and we won't be executing anybody anytime soon. Here are my comments:
30 day appeal rule is ridiculous, how about the same 30 day appeal rule for ALL appeals and not just DP cases? How long was the ATT appeal, or Exxon Mobil, or most civil cases? Not only that many convicts have been released after spending 5, 10, 15 years in prison and in Alaska you can't even get a DNA test. Not even the current Supreme Court will allow that. Ask yourself this, what if it was my kid who was wrongfully convicted, you still want a 30 day appeal window? Oh and by the way, a lot of states only allow "new" evidence in the 30 day window after appeal, another joke. Others have mentioned the cost and by having the DP it leads to a lot of plea bargins, like the ones in Texas and Virginia where I read, 3 guys burglarize a home, somebody gets killed, 2 guys take a deal and get out in 3-5 years and 1 dude is executed (see Dead Man Walking?) Is that really why we have the DP? How does that save us money and more importantly lead us to the truth? It always amuses me when folks speak about justice or whatever and leave morbid comments about the state killing people when there are a lot of homicides out there that are treated unequally when it comes to prosecution. For example, the woman who shot her pastor husband in the back in cold blood, and is now out of prison seeking the return of her kids, the drunk drivers who kill people on their third or fourth DUI conviction, etc. The death penalty was enacted to protect us against the worst of the worst, such as the Night Stalker, cop killers, child killers, etc, not the average run of the mill homicides where multiple suspects are involved and the prosecutor decides who lives and dies. In California, I don't trust the state to balance the budget and/or do the people's work so why would I trust them to employ a fair and balanced death penalty?
I could go for a shorter appeal time on all cases - there's way too much time, energy and money wasted dragging out the whole judicial process.
Johnf: Like I said on the other website. We spend tons of money on the justice system. In a death penalty case, it is usually the taxpayer that forks out millions to fund the defendant's initial trial defense and the process of appealing his case over a 10 to 20 year period.
I think the taxpayers have done his duty.
If the system convicts him then the financial burden of gathering new evidence for the convict should no longer fall on the taxpayer.
There are non-profits that could help the convict.
Mr. Nance,
That's not my point. The death penalty is final. If we execute an innocent person it doesn't matter who WOULD HAVE financed the investigation into his innocence. The point is the investigation will never take place. The innocent person will be dead.
I think the cost of such an investigation should be borne the same way legal fees are in civil cases. If you can demonstrate that you were wrongfully convicted the state ought ot bear the cost of demonstrating your innocence. If you were properly convicted you ought to bear the costs of any investigations into your ostensible innocence.
If a defendent laters proves his/her innocence then I am not sure if the defendant can sue the state for damages including recovery of funds spent by the defendent and others to prove the defendents innocence. I would hope that they could. Most governments shield themselves from lawsuits.
I would agree that funds should be reimbursed by the state if innocence is later proven.
The Innocence Project is garbage. It was founded by Barry Scheck who prior to the original O.J. trial ran around getting innocent people out of jail because of DNA evidence.
During the O.J. trial he told everybody how flawed DNA evidence was and that it was an "emerging science", garbage.
After the trial he went back to telling everyone how "flawless" DNA was.
It's crap like this that defeats the justice system.
I agree 30 days and "juice" them.
I know the Libs are going to cream me, so what. It is time we thin the heard. They are so fond of Darwinism, let the criminals go extinct.
getalife -- once again you've shown you're just a "mouth" without a mind.
For those of you with brains. check the links. The Fred Zane cases alone show how uninformed many of you are.
KillerB, defend O.J., that's what I was talking about among other things.
Fred Zane is an anomaly in a sea of slaughter, sacrifices must be made for the collective good, at least that's what the socialist agenda spouts.
Can't have it both ways.
How many innocent "civilians" must die to promote your cause KillerB.
As for "mouth" without a mind, I don't recall me trying to stick it to the "just us" system.
Live a good life and this garbage will avoid you.
getalife -- Please clarify. It sounds like you're saying innocents should be convicted or executed as "sacrifices ... for the collective good" and my "cause" is killing innocents?
Just want to be clear before doing a retort.
As Ron White says "I'm from Texas - we have the death penalty - and we USE IT"... gotta luv that drunken fool of a comedian. (And NO I, personally, am NOT from Texas, thank god.)
Life in solitary confinement is worse then death and much more painful over a longer period of time.
Or, take the other approach, and go back to PUBLIC HANGINGS. Once a couple get hanged on TV I guarantee serious crime will go down.
I don't see how solitary confinement could be worse than the heinous crimes these animals commit. Why should they be allowed the luxury of life, when they have no respect for the life of those they killed, molested or raped? Why let a monster live and watch t.v. and enjoy the computer? They have three meals a day and a roof over their heads. In this economy they actually have it better than a lot of people. They should have their little trials and then they should fry.
Who are you to decide who lives and who dies?
Throughout time people have been put to death for the wrong reasons.
Are you a believer of Jesus Christ? Jesus was given the death penalty by crucifiction.
The most important and loving person in history was put to death and he did no wrong.
People are evil and like to take justice quickly without thinking.
I hope that every supporter of the death penalty never has to defend their innocence and are never found guilty and put to death.
Some of you are full of hate and you are probably one of the people who will be in prison soon.
I would like to end with the real focus we should have. 1. Reduce drug abuse. 2. Create more jobs 3. Give longer prison sentences 4. DO NOT TREAT INMATES BETTER THAN THE POOR!
Put a 10 year cap on the years lawyers can drag appeals thru the system. 10 years then it's put up or shut up. Show he is innocent and the jury f'd up or off to the needle he goes.