[MindFad]

Either way, I've never been comfortable with state-sanctioned murder, but I am honestly curious, since this seems to be a major point of argument. Discuss.

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally Posted by MindFad

Either way, I've never been comfortable with state-sanctioned murder, but I am honestly curious, since this seems to be a major point of argument. Discuss.

I'm too lazy to look up the facts, but I've always heard it costs more to execute a prisoner because of all the appeals and court/legal wranglings.

At a certain point, once the legal appeals have been exhausted then it's probably cheaper to kill them.

[Rolling Bones]

More to execute a person. And from what I read much, much more.

I'm too lazy too.

They should do it like in the old cowboy movies. Sentence him then take him out and hang him. Every town had a hangin' tree.

[tie]

Much more to execute. I also think it is easier on the victim's family to have a life sentence, since that saves them the trauma of many years of court appeals. Lock him up and it's done.

[Monique]

It should be the choice of the condemned; if he wants to spend the rest of his life in prison or get executed.

It probably cost less to execute someone than to feed him or her the rest of their lives.

[Shaddim]

Due to the complex and convoluted appeals process, not to mention the special care and facilities, it costs more to execute.

[cmeisenzahl]

I think the question is moot. I would hate to think we would decide something that important based on which was cheapest. I would prefer that we decide based on what's right.

[Chuckit]

It depends on the legal system. In California, it certainly costs more to execute someone because they get several automatic appeals. In a system in which the judge simply says, "Guilty," pulls out a pistol and wastes the felon, a life sentence would be more expensive.

[RAILhead]

I can buy a 100 count case of Winchester 9 mm rounds for around $21, so that's right about $0.21 per person. Thus, I say prison is obviously more expensive.

[rambo47]

With a little planning and organization skill you can make it even more effiicient by doing all the scvmbags in a prison in one day. Call it "Taking out the Trash Day". You get two years to run your appeals. If nothing is resolved by then through the courts, it gets resolved the final way. Every year on July 1st, all the convicted murders that have had two years of appeals take the long walk to the firing line. One prison, one executioner. And the world becomes a better place, 21¢ at a time!

[Rolling Bones]

Originally Posted by RAILhead

I can buy a 100 count case of Winchester 9 mm rounds for around $21, so that's right about $0.21 per person. Thus, I say prison is obviously more expensive.

This from a Christian minister?!

SHAME!!!

I say dig a very large hole. Ship all the condemed by train cattle cars. Put them all in the hole. Have the army stand around the outside of the hole and pick em off. Then bulldoze it.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by MacNStein

Due to the complex and convoluted appeals process, not to mention the special care and facilities, it costs more to execute.

The expense of the appeals process is mostly an accounting matter -- i.e. on paper, rather than real. The government lawyers are on salary, they aren't paid by the hour. The courts and judges are there whether they are doing death penalty appeals or hearing contract cases. And where private lawyers are involved, they are usually donating their time for free (all the major law firms do this, they write off their hundreds of dollars an hour fees) or the lawyers are being paid a pittance by the public defender's office. Filing fees and so on are negligible.

So you can account for all that expense and come up with an impressive number, but it is mostly notional. In contrast, prisons are expensive, and the expense is very real.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

It depends on the legal system. In California, it certainly costs more to execute someone because they get several automatic appeals. In a system in which the judge simply says, "Guilty," pulls out a pistol and wastes the felon, a life sentence would be more expensive.

Does this include the cost of an innocent person executed for a crime they didn't commit? I'm actually all for execution, as long as there is absolutely no doubt as to guilt.

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by Rolling Bones

This from a Christian minister?!

SHAME!!!

I say dig a very large hole. Ship all the condemed by train cattle cars. Put them all in the hole. Have the army stand around the outside of the hole and pick em off. Then bulldoze it.

I'm no minister. Yes, I have loads of degrees in the "field," but I'm not a minister per se. Mostly, though, I'm just honest. Thou shalt not kill would be tough for me to follow if someone killed someone in my family, and rather than pussy-foot or put on, I'm honest about what I'd probably do.

[itai195]

Originally Posted by SimeyTheLimey

The expense of the appeals process is mostly an accounting matter -- i.e. on paper, rather than real. The government lawyers are on salary, they aren't paid by the hour. The courts and judges are there whether they are doing death penalty appeals or hearing contract cases. And where private lawyers are involved, they are usually donating their time for free (all the major law firms do this, they write off their hundreds of dollars an hour fees) or the lawyers are being paid a pittance by the public defender's office. Filing fees and so on are negligible.

So you can account for all that expense and come up with an impressive number, but it is mostly notional. In contrast, prisons are expensive, and the expense is very real.

Are you saying that in the absence of thousands of hours of death penalty appeals, the government (state, federal) would hire just as many lawyers, judges, and other court staff? And tax writeoffs by major law firms cost nothing in terms of tax revenue? This doesn't compute.

[Chuckit]

Yeah. If the government didn't save money by having so much less work that it would result in massive savings if their lawyers were paid hourly, that would just mean the government was overspending obscenely.

Then again, government never shrinks.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally Posted by itai195

Are you saying that in the absence of thousands of hours of death penalty appeals, the government (state, federal) would hire just as many lawyers, judges, and other court staff? And tax writeoffs by major law firms cost nothing in terms of tax revenue? This doesn't compute.

The actual number of death penalty cases is quite small. I don't think the government staffs with those small number of cases in mind. Take those cases away, and there would still be the vast bulk of litigation to handle. So the number of judges and clerks (who handle most of it) would be most likely the same.

The same goes for the private sector. Most of their (our) work is private sector work for paying clients. In our spare time, we handle pro-bono work. Pro-bono work does not drive staffing. Billable work drives staffing.

I'm not an expert on partnership tax issues, but I don't believe that pro-bono generates any significant kind of a tax write off, because there are relatively few overhead expenses directly tied to pro-bono, as opposed to the normal operation of a for-profit legal practice. Most of the overhead is salaries, and associates are paid whether they do pro-bono or not and we do not get overtime. Lawyers are paid bonuses, but relatively few law firms will allow associates to count more than a small percentage of their pro-bono work toward bonuses (mine is an exception, but even at my firm, there are unwritten rules). In addition, my understanding of the tax code is that the value of time donated (in terms of what you customarily charge, but decided not to charge) is not a charitable deduction, even if you "donate" that time to a charitable entity. Link to IRS guidance for individuals, and I think also applicable to partnerships saying you cannot deduct the value of time or services as a charitable expense.

That brings us to the bulk of the dollars attributed to this kind of work. The numbers you see for private legal fees are mostly notional. They are the amount the law firm would charge for the same number of lawyer hours to a paying client. For big firms, who do a lot of pro-bono work, that is usually measured in the hundreds an hour. This makes it seem at first blush that there is a large opportunity cost associated. But that is misleading because the law firm would never turn away a paying client because of pro-bono work. Lawyers are not 9-5 workers, so we have flexibility to take on more work. Pro-bono is something law firms do in addition to, not instead of, paying work.

There is an old saw that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. I'm simply pointing out that the cost associated with appeals for death penalty cases is a misleading argument against the death penalty because most of that cost would not go away if death penalty cases were to be converted into non-death penalty cases. There would still be the same number of both private sector and government lawyers, and that is most of the calculated expense.