成本:新研究显示加州已在死刑上花费了 40 亿美元
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-new-study-reveals-california-has-spent-4-billion-on-the-death-penalty?
死刑信息中心 2011 年 6 月 20 日 2024 年 9 月 25 日更新
一项关于加州死刑的新研究发现,自 1978 年恢复死刑以来,纳税人已在死刑上花费了超过 40 亿美元,即自那时以来执行的 13 次死刑中每次花费 3.08 亿美元。这项由美国上诉法院法官 Arthur L. Alarcon 和洛约拉法学院教授 Paula M. Mitchell 进行的研究估计,死刑审判、死囚牢房的加强安保以及死刑被告的法律代理每年为加州的预算增加 1.84 亿美元。加州拥有全美最大的死囚牢房,由于其注射死刑方案受到法律挑战,自 2006 年以来从未执行过死刑。
报告作者得出结论,除非进行深刻(且成本更高)的改革,否则死刑制度将继续存在,但成本高得难以承受。阿拉孔法官和米切尔教授预测,到 2030 年,维持死刑的成本将增加到 90 亿美元,届时该州的死囚人数可能会增加到 1,000 多人。加州上诉项目执行董事迈克尔·米尔曼表示,300 多名死囚正在等待被任命为州上诉和联邦人身保护令请愿书的律师。米尔曼说,该州只有不到 100 名律师有资格处理死刑案件,因为这项工作令人沮丧且要求高,而且报酬不足。请阅读以下报告的更多调查结果。
即将发表的研究的其他发现如下:
该州的死囚每年比那些被判终身监禁且不得假释的人多花费 1.84 亿美元。
死刑起诉费用是终身监禁案件的 20 倍。
最便宜的死刑审判费用比最昂贵的终身监禁案件多 110 万美元。
死刑案件的陪审团选拔比终身监禁案件多花三到四个星期,费用多 20 万美元。
去年,对死囚强制实施的加强安保措施使每名死刑犯的监禁费用增加了 100,663 美元,总计 7200 万美元。
作者概述了未来的三个可能方向:完全保留死刑制度,每年为法院和律师额外花费 8500 万美元;减少可判处死刑的罪行数量,每年节省 5500 万美元;或者废除死刑,每五六年为纳税人节省约 10 亿美元。
(C. Williams,《研究表明,死刑每年给加州造成 1.84 亿美元的损失》,《洛杉矶时报》,2011 年 6 月 20 日)。该报告将于下周在洛杉矶洛约拉法律评论上发布。请参阅《死刑的成本和研究》。
COSTS: New Study Reveals California Has Spent $4 Billion on the Death Penalty
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-new-study-reveals-california-has-spent-4-billion-on-the-death-penalty?
By Death Penalty Information Center Jun 20, 2011 Updated on Sep 25, 2024
A new study of California’s death penalty found that taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978, or $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then. The study, conducted by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School Professor Paula M. Mitchell estimated that capital trials, enhanced security on death row and legal representation for capital defendants add $184 million to California’s budget annually. California has the largest death row in the country and has not had an execution since 2006 due to legal challenges to its lethal injection protocol.
The report's authors concluded that unless profound (and more costly) reforms are made, the capital punishment system will continue to exist mostly in theory while exacting an untenable cost. Judge Alarcon and Professor Mitchell forecast the cost of maintaining the death penalty will increase to $9 billion by 2030, when the state’s death row will likely grow to well over 1,000 inmates. Michael Millman, Executive Director of the California Appellate Project, said more than 300 inmates on death row are awaiting to be appointed attorneys for their state appeals and federal habeas corpus petitions. Millman said there are fewer than 100 attorneys in the state who are qualified to handle capital cases because the work is dispiriting and demanding, and the compensation inadequate. Read more of the report’s findings below.
Additional findings from the forthcoming study are as follows:
- The state’s death row prisoners cost $184 million more per year than those sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
- A death penalty prosecution costs up to 20 times as much as a life-without-parole case.
- The least expensive death penalty trial costs $1.1 million more than the most expensive life-without-parole case.
- Jury selection in a capital case runs three to four weeks longer and costs $200,000 more than in life-without-parole cases.
- The heightened security practices mandated for death row inmates added $100,663 to the cost of incarcerating each capital prisoner last year, for a total of $72 million.
The authors outlined three possible directions for the future: fully preserve the system of capital punishment at an additional cost of $85 million for courts and lawyers each year; reduce the number of death penalty-eligible crimes for an annual savings of $55 million; or abolish capital punishment and save taxpayers about $1 billion every five or six years.
(C. Williams, “Death penalty costs California $184 million a year, study says,” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2011). The report will be released next week in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review. See Costs and Studies on the death penalty.
Studies
State Studies
The following list is a sample of recent state studies focusing on issues of the death penalty.
Alabama
- The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override (2011) — Study by the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama exposing the practice of state judges imposing death sentences by overriding a jury’s recommendation for life.
- Alabama Death Penalty Assessment (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project found that Alabama’s death penalty failed to meet fundamental ABA standards of fairness and accuracy.
- Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Alabama (2005) — Study by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), showing how structural and procedural flaws in Alabama’s criminal justice system stack the deck against fair trials and appropriate sentencing for those facing the death penalty.
Arizona
- Arizona Death Penalty Assessment (2006) — Study by the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project determining that Arizona’s capital punishment laws are plagued with serious problems.
California
- California Cost Study 2011 — DPIC summary of “A roadmap to mend or end the California legislature’s multi-billion dollar death penalty debacle” from Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review by Judge Arthur L. Alarcon & Paula M. Mitchell.
- California’s Death Penalty is Dead (2011) — Study by the ACLU of Northern California catalogs numerous intractable problems and waning public support which may lead to the end of capital punishment in the state.
- Death in Decline ‘09 (2009) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California revealing that only three counties (Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside) accounted for 83% of the state’s death sentences in 2009.
- The Hidden Death Tax (2009) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California on the costs of the death penalty found additional expenses due to a net increase in the size of death row.
- Death by Geography (2008) — A study by the ACLU of Northern California examining the variation among California counties in seeking the death penalty.
- The Impact of Legally Inappropriate Factors on Death Sentencing for California Homicides, 1990-1999 (2005) — A study by G. Pierce & M. Radelet published in the Santa Clara Law Review finding that the race of the victim in the underlying murder greatly affected whether a defendant would be sentenced to death.
Colorado
- Colorado Capital Punishment: An Empirical Study (2013) — Conducted by law professors Justin Marceau and Sam Kamin of the University of Denver and Wanda Foglia of Rowan University found that the death penalty in Colorado is applied so rarely as to render the system unconstitutional. The authors concluded that Colorado’s death penalty law is applicable to almost all first-degree murders, but is imposed so infrequently that it fails to provide the kind of careful narrowing of cases required by the Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia (1972). In this groundbreaking study, the researchers reviewed all first-degree murder cases in the state between 1999 and 2010. They found that 92 percent of the 544 first-degree murder cases in that time span contained at least one aggravating factor that made the defendant eligible for the death penalty. However, prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death penalty in only 15 murder cases and pursued the death penalty at trial in only five of those cases — a 1% rate among death-eligible cases. The authors wrote, “Under the Colorado capital sentencing system, many defendants are eligible but almost none are actually sentenced to death. Because Colorado’s aggravating factors so rarely result in actual death sentences, their use in any given case is a violation of the Eighth Amendment.”
Connecticut
- Arbitrariness in Death Cases (2011) — Study by Professor John Donohue of Yale University’s School of Law of death sentences in Connecticut finding that seeking the death penalty often correlated with the race of the victim and the defendant, and not necessarily with the severity of the crimes.
Indiana
- Indiana Death Penalty Cost Study (2010) — A state analysis of the costs of the death penalty in Indiana finding the average cost to a county for a trial and direct appeal in a capital case to be over ten times more than a life-without-parole case.
- Indiana Death Penalty Assessment (2007) — Study by the American Bar Association calling for a halt to executions in the state because of concerns about the arbitrariness of the state’s death penalty.
Nevada
- Nevada Cost Study 2012 — A study by Dr. Terance Miethe of the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada on the costs of the death penalty in Nevada.
Ohio
- Report of Task Force Appointed by the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court (2014) The Task Force announced 56 recommendations for changing the death penalty, including:
- Require higher standards for proving guilt if a death sentence is sought (such as DNA evidence)
- Bar the death penalty for those who suffer from “serious mental illness”
- Lessen the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty
- Create a Death Penalty Charging Committee at the Attorney General’s Office to approve capital prosecutions
- Adopt a Racial Justice Act to facilitate inequality claims in Ohio courts.
- Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report (2007) — Study by the American Bar Association stating that Ohio’s capital punishment system is so flawed that it should be suspended while the state conducts a thorough review of its fairness and accuracy.
- AP Ohio Study (2005) — Study by the Associated Press of 1,936 indictments reported to the Ohio Supreme Court by Ohio counties with capital cases from October 1981 through 2002 finding that capital punishment has been applied in an uneven and often arbitrary fashion.
Oregon
- Fair Punishment Project (2016) — Analysis of case records, media reports, and opinions of Oregon legal experts by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project ofinding that two-thirds of the 35 people on Oregon’s death row have serious mental illness or intellectual impairment, experienced severe childhood trauma, or were under age 21 at the time of the offense.
- Oregon’s Death Penalty: A Cost Analysis (2016) — Study by Lewis & Clark Law School Prof. Aliza B. Kaplan, Seattle University criminal justice Prof. Peter Collins, and Lewis & Clark law candidate Venetia L. Mayhew examined the costs of hundreds of aggravated murder and murder cases in Oregon finding that the average trial and incarceration costs of an Oregon murder case that results in a death penalty are almost double those of a murder case that results in a sentence of life imprisonment or a term of years, and that, excluding state prison costs, cases that result in death sentences may be three to four times more expensive.
South Carolina
- Removal of African Americans and Women in Jury Selection in South Carolina Capital Cases, 1977-2012 (2016) — Study by Professor Ann M. Eisenberg of the University of South Carolina of jury selection in 35 South Carolina homicide cases between 1997 and 2012 that resulted in death sentences, reviewing the strikes or acceptance of more than 3,000 venire members for gender and more than 1,000 veniremenbers for race. The study found that prosecutors exercised their peremptory strikes at nearly triple the rate against African-American prospective jurors than against white prospective jurors and that the death-qualification process further impeded a substantial number of African-American jurors from serving, contributing to an overrepresentation of whites on death penalty juries. The gender study showed that, while men and women were excused for cause at comparable rates, both were struck more for views against the death the death penalty than for pro-death penalty views and women were 3.8 times more likely to be excluded for opposing the death penalty than for pro-death penalty views. Women were 1.4 times more likely to be struck for cause for opposing the death penalty than men and men were 2.3 times more likely to be struck than women for being unable to consider a life sentence. Prosecutors were 1.4 times more likely to peremptorily strike a woman than a man, and defense lawyers were 1.4 times more likely to peremptorily strike a man than a woman.
- The Effect of Race, Gender, and Location on Prosecutorial Decision to Seek the Death Penalty in South Carolina (2006) — Study of homicide cases in South Carolina by Professor Isaac Unah of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and attorney Michael Songer finding that prosecutors were more likely to seek the death penalty when the victim in the underlying murder was white, if the victim was female, and when the crime occurred in a rural area of the state.
Tennessee
- Tennessee’s Death Penalty Lottery (2018) — An examination of every first-degree murder case in Tennessee from 1977-2017 found that the facts of the crime did not predict whether a death sentence would be imposed. Rather, the best indicators were arbitrary factors such as where the murder occurred, the race of the defendant, the quality of the defense, and the views of the prosecutors and judges assigned to the case.
- Tennessee Legislative Study Committee Recommendations (2009) — A 16-month analysis of the state’s capital punishment process by the committee with recommendations for achieving a more fair and accurate system
- Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment (2007) — Study by the ABA detailing racial and geographic disparities in capital cases, poorly trained defense attorneys, heavy caseloads for those representing defedants, and inadequate procedures to address innocence claims.
Texas
- Texas Death Penalty Assessment Report (2013) — Study by the ABA focusing on the fairness and accuracy of the death penalty system in Texas.
- Regulating Death in the Lone Star State (2011) — A study by the ACLU of Texas and Northwestern University’s Center for International Human Rights revealing that procedures for euthanizing animals in the state are more carefully regulated than the protocol for executing death row inmates.
- What’s Messing with Texas Death Sentences? (2011) — A study analyzing the decline of death sentencing in Texas by David McCord.
- Convicting the Innocent: Texas Justice Derailed (2009) — A study by The Justice Project analyzing the cases of 39 innocent Texans who collectively spent more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
- Too Much Cruelty, Too Little Clemency (2009) — A study by Amnesty International examining many of the nearly 200 executions that have occurred during Governor Rick Perry’s term in office.
- Legal Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2009) — A study that reveals disparities in who receives the death penalty in Texas by Scott Phillips, a professor at the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver.
- Status Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2009) — A study by Scott Phillips, a sociology and criminology professor at the University of Denver, published in the Law & Society Review focusing on the imposition of death sentences in relation to the victim’s social status.
- Racial Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment (2008) — A study by Prof. Scott Phillips of the University of Denver exploring the relationship of race to death sentencing in Harris County (Houston), Texas.
- A New Look at Race When Death Is Sought (2008) — A study by Professor Scott Phillips of the University of Denver found that black defendants in Houston, Texas, are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants, even when other variables are accounted for.
- Eyewitness Identification Procedure in Texas (2008) — A study by the Justice Project concerning criminal justice procedures in Texas.
- Mental Illness and Executions in Texas (2007) — Study conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has revealing that Texas is almost last among states in spending on mental health services and performs poorly in other mental health areas, while executing many inmates with serious mental illness.
- Minimizing Risk, A Blueprint for Death Penalty Reform in Texas (2005) — Study by the Texas Defender Service calling for substantial changes in the way Texas handles capital murder cases.
- A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty (2000) — A study by the Texas Defender Service.
Virginia
- Virginia Death Penalty Assessment Report (2013) — Study by the ABA focusing on the fairness and accuracy of Virginia’s death penalty system.
- A Vision for Justice (2005) — Study by the Innocence Commission for Virginia of 11 wrongful conviction cases in Virginia finding that mistaken eyewitness identification is the major reason innocent people have been convicted in the state.
- Virginia Crime Lab Audit (2005) — Study by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors finding that the Virginia lab’s internal review process was flawed and that labs had botched DNA tests.