Atlantic Monthly has reported on a report that shows that since California enacted its current death-penalty statute in 1978, the state’s taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on only 13 executions, or roughly $308 million per execution.
As of 2009, prosecuting death-penalty cases cost upwards of $184 million more each year than life-without-parole cases. Housing, health care, and legal representation for California’s current death-row population of 714 — the largest in the country — account for $144 million in annual extra costs.
What lesson to draw – be more like Texas, where it’s surely a lot cheaper to carry out capital punishment, or save money with life-without-parole?