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According to Alarcón and Mitchell, California has spent $4 billion on the death penalty since 1978, and death penalty trials are 20 times more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. [99] Studies in other states show similar patterns. [100] [101]
California hasn’t executed a condemned prisoner in nearly 20 years, but prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty, leading to court costs of more than $300 million in the last five years ...
The huge costs associated with the death penalty are a very good argument for doing away with it -- as though the possibility of executing an innocent person weren't good enough on its own ...
The number of new death sentences remained small by historical standards in 2024, at 26 nationwide, as did the number of executions, 25, and the number of people on death row, about 2,250.
Additionally, seeking the death penalty is more costly to the state and taxpayer than seeking life without parole. [50] A common argument against life without parole is that it is equally as immoral as the death penalty, as it still sentences one to die in prison.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the top three factors determining whether a convict gets a death sentence in a murder case are not aggravating factors, but instead the location the crime occurred (and thus whether it is in the jurisdiction of a prosecutor aggressively using the death penalty), the quality of legal defense ...
(A 2013 study found that death penalty cases lasted, on average, 148 days vs. life-in-prison cases, which lasted roughly 24 days ; a 2014 Department of Justice report noted that the average time ...
The sentence is decided by the jury and must be unanimous. Sentences of death handed down by a jury cannot be rejected by the judge. [36] In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued, even if a single juror opposed death (there is no retrial). [37]