By Jennifer McMenamin
Sun Reporter
March 6, 2008
The death penalty has cost Maryland taxpayers at least $186 million more in prosecuting and defending capital murder cases over two decades than would have been spent without the threat of execution, according to a study to be released today.
In addition, because most death sentences in Maryland are overturned and eventually reduced to life without parole, state residents are often saddled with the high cost of a capital case and the bill for housing a convicted killer for life, the study found.
Paid for by the Baltimore-based Abell Foundation and prepared by the Urban Institute, a national, nonpartisan research organization in Washington, the study estimates that the cost of reaching a single death sentence costs the state an average of $3 million, which is $1.9 million more than a non-death penalty case costs, even after factoring in the long-term costs of incarcerating convicted killers not sentenced to death.
The report – the first to analyze the cost of capital punishment in Maryland – arrives as state lawmakers prepare to again debate repealing the death penalty. A hearing is scheduled for today in Annapolis on a Senate bill that would eliminate capital punishment as a sentencing option. A similar House bill is scheduled to be heard next week.
“This is a compelling argument against the death penalty – the enormous costs to the state’s taxpayers,” said Rick Abbruzzese, a spokesman for Gov. Martin O’Malley, a death penalty opponent who focused on the financial costs of capital punishment when he testified last year in support of repeal. The bill was defeated by one vote in a Senate committee last year.
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Money will likely be more of a motivator to legislators than morality, ethics or spirituality.