Economic Argument Against the Death Penalty

The argument against the death penalty from the economic perspective centers upon the following sequential points of fact:

1) Death penalty trials run longer and involve more costs to the economy than non-death penalty prosecutions;

2) The lengthy appeals process incurred by death penalty sentences involves an average of seven years legal expenses charged to the public;

3) The costs of housing Death Row inmates is prohibitively more expensive than housing the noncondemned prison population;

4) There is no demonstrable proof that the death penalty reduces violent crime and thereby lessens the economic impact of crime;

5) The only way that the death penalty could be made economically feasible would be to revamp the American system of jurisprudence and the philosophical system of justice upon which it is based.

Economic arguments against the death penalty begin with a non-statistical fact of life: no one likes to die.

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trial, two young men admittedly murdered their parents, then pled selfdefense on the nebulous grounds of "abuse." The state decided to press for the death penalty. But juries feel a special obligation not to judge hastily in death penalty trials; death is not a penalty that can be corrected later. Consequently, after several months of hearings, the Menendez brothers' trial ended in a hung jury. The costs to the economy were enormous, as indicated by the fact that the Menendez brothers exhausted an inherited fortune of over a million dollars in their defense; the district attorney's office has estimated it used an equal amount to prepare and mount the state's case; twelve jurors were removed from their jobs for nearly a year. When commenting upon their failure to reach a decision, Menendez trial jurors indicated that it was the death penalty itself that prevented them from coming to final agreement, not the innocence or guilt of the accused. Theoretically jurors are not to make their deliberations with a distinction of penalties in mind; in reality, noted at the beginning of this paper, emotion and moral orientation are integral factors in the judicial equation. The Menendez brothers are currently being retried; the state
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Approximate Word count = 2080
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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