ithout parole prisoners face, on average, 30 or 40 years in prisonwhile the annual cost of incarceration is $40,000 to $50,000 a year for eachprisoner or more. There is no question that the up front cost of the deathpenalty is significantly higher than that of the life without parole cases. There also appears to be no question that, over time, the equivalent lifewithout parole cases are much more expensive - from $1.2 to $3.6 million -than death penalty cases. Opponents claim that the death penalty costs 3 - 10times more than life without parole.TIME Magazine (2/7/94) found that nationwide the average cell costsis $24,000 a year and the maximum security cell cost is $75,000 a year. Therefore, any cost calculations should be based specifically of cell cost forcriminals who have committed the exact same category of offense - in otherwords, cost comparisons are valid only if you compare the cost of deathpenalty cases to the equivalent life without parole cases. But the cost for justice does not have to be so high for the execution ofmurderers. If we only allowed appeals that are relevant in proving one’sinnocence and eliminated the many more that are used merely as delayingtactics, it would save millions in taxpayers dollars.Abolitionists claim that the death penalty is unconstitutional by quotingthe eighth amendment which forbids “cruel and unusual punishment”. But“cruel and unusual” was never defined by our founding fathers. So wheredoes the Supreme Court stand on the “cruel and unusual” claim of theabolitionists? In several cases the Justices of the Supreme Court have heldthat the death penalty is not cruel and/or unusual, and is in fact, aConstitutionally acceptable remedy for a criminal act. The Supreme Courthas constantly held that the death penalty in itself, as a sentence for a crime,is neither cruel or unusual. The court said: “The punishment of death is not cruel, within th...
