Recent Cost Studies

• A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000).
  (December 2003 Survey by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit)
• In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment.
  (2004 Report from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Research)
• In Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case.
  (Urban Institute, The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland, March 2008)
• In California the current sytem costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty.
  (California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice, July 2008)