by Josh from North Carolina
In these economically trying times, when every penny counts, death penalty opponents in North Carolina are attempting a timely, and not unheard of, bit of marketing to make their point – quantify executions in dollars and cents. A new study, published in December in American Law and Economics Review, attempts to do just that, setting the annual savings amount of banning statewide executions at $11 million. The study is by Philip Cook, an economist at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
As originally reported in Raleigh’s News & Observer, 2005-2006 saw 1,034 people charged with murder in the Tar Heel State, but only 11 sentenced to death for their crimes. Such a disproportionate outcome ratio, Cook argues, is hardly worth the effort, especially since the rarity of death penalty sentencing undermines any significant deterrence to violent crime, less than one percent by his own estimates. Capital trials can soar in cost to an average of $116,400 for the defendant versus the comparatively meager $18,600 for a non-capital murder trial.
Though opponents to capital punishment often make arguments on moral and ethical grounds, Cook sees his study as a viable third avenue. “The idea that the state could spend so much money on someone they think is completely undeserving is very interesting,” the article quotes Cook, “I have to believe that there are some people that would find this cost issue irritating.”
Cook’s findings will be presented to North Carolina lawmakers. Other states have successfully abolished their death penalties on primarily cost-benefit reasoning, including New Jersey in 2007 and New Mexico in 2009.
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