ent an estimated $57 million on the death penalty from 1973-1988 to achieve only 18 executions. This is an average of $3.2 million per execution. (www.essentialorg.ldpic). In Indiana, $2 million has been spent for only defense costs. (www. Esseneial.org). The problem with spending so much money on this is when the county needs things for different areas such as roadway improvements, educational improvements, there is no money because it was all used on some psychopath who killed an innocent person. One example of this is in Washington, employee pay increases were placed on hold, its $300,000 contigency fund was depleted, and all capital improvements were placed on hold because all funds had been used on capital punishment trials.Sometimes, we sentence people to death row for killing someone, they get sick, and we spend more money for medical treatment. This was also a case in Washington: Mitchell Rope was sentenced to death for murder, and after budgeting $346,000 for his3rd death sentence, money was being spent to treat his liver disease. Much money was being spent to fix his medical problem, then, he was to be executed. Many attorneys are now asking for a death sentence to be post-pone until adequate funding for attorneys fees are available. In Okaloosa County, the cost is so high, county commissioners delayed pay raises for the county employees. The county also decided not to replace public health nurses. A halt was placed on non-emergency travel and the purchase of new computers for schools. The cost of the death penalty is draining our counties of necessary spending. If cost isnt reason enough for abolishing the death penalty, we should look at crime deterrence. The United States is the only western country that uses the death penalty, and it is also the one with the highest crime rate (gtd http://www.pages.prodigy). In the 1980s, the states honoring the death penalty as penalty for a crime averaged 7.5 criminal homicides per10...
