06-20-2011, 06:55 PM
Jesus Cali... you've executed 5 people in last 10 years (each one was on the row for over 20 years) at a cost of gazillions for taxpayers! no wonder CA. is broke!
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Taxpayers have spent $4 billion since 1978 on California's capital punishment system -- and with only 13 executions to show for it.
That's about $308 million per execution.
And without substantial changes, the state's total bill will expand to $9 billion by 2030, according to a new study by federal appeals Judge Arthur Alarcón and Paula Mitchell, his law clerk and a professor at Loyola Law School.
The situation is now so severe, voters must choose to pay higher taxes or abolish the death penalty, the authors say.
The study's release comes at a time when fiscal policy is a hot topic in California. And the state's $26 billion deficit is already hitting the criminal justice system.
Gov. Jerry Brown announced in April that he is canceling the long-planned construction of a new housing facility for condemned inmates at the state's infamous San Quentin prison.
With a backlog of 714 prisoners currently on death row, Alarcón and Mitchell call California's capital punishment system "dysfunctional," and "a debacle."
The rare comprehensive review of the state's death row costs estimates that prosecuting death penalty cases is $184 million more expensive every year than if those cases had been life without parole prosecutions.
"Nobody can really with a straight face say this is a system that is working," Mitchell said in an interview.
The state attorney general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Taxpayers have spent $4 billion since 1978 on California's capital punishment system -- and with only 13 executions to show for it.
That's about $308 million per execution.
And without substantial changes, the state's total bill will expand to $9 billion by 2030, according to a new study by federal appeals Judge Arthur Alarcón and Paula Mitchell, his law clerk and a professor at Loyola Law School.
The situation is now so severe, voters must choose to pay higher taxes or abolish the death penalty, the authors say.
The study's release comes at a time when fiscal policy is a hot topic in California. And the state's $26 billion deficit is already hitting the criminal justice system.
Gov. Jerry Brown announced in April that he is canceling the long-planned construction of a new housing facility for condemned inmates at the state's infamous San Quentin prison.
With a backlog of 714 prisoners currently on death row, Alarcón and Mitchell call California's capital punishment system "dysfunctional," and "a debacle."
The rare comprehensive review of the state's death row costs estimates that prosecuting death penalty cases is $184 million more expensive every year than if those cases had been life without parole prosecutions.
"Nobody can really with a straight face say this is a system that is working," Mitchell said in an interview.
The state attorney general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.