Many people believe the death penalty is more cost-effective than life in prison without parole. In reality, the death penalty’s complexity, length, and finality drive costs through the roof. In fact, every cost study in the United States shows that it is more expensive to convict and sentence someone to death than to sentence them to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Capital punishment is an inefficient, bloated government system that bogs down law enforcement, delays justice for victims’ families, and devours millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded resources that could otherwise be used to save lives and protect the public.
What’s the cost of capital punishment?
- A 2025 report from the Ohio Attorney General estimates that the extra cost of imposing the death penalty might range between $116 million and $348 million. The total amount spent in a capital case is between two and a half and five times as much as a case where life without parole is the punishment.
- In 2019, the Wyoming State Legislature Legislative Services Office stated if the death penalty were eliminated, the state would have saved $725,000 in both 2019 and 2020 and $875,000 in 2021.
- In California, a 2011 study showed death penalty cases are 20 times more expensive. That state has spent over $4 billion on the death penalty since 1978.
- Reviewing 15 state studies of death-penalty costs conducted between 2000 and 2016, an Oklahoma study showed seeking the death penalty imposes an average of approximately $700,000 more in costs than not seeking death.
- A 2018 report in Pennsylvania found post-conviction correctional costs were 47% higher on average in capital cases than non-capital cases.
- In Texas, the average cost of a death penalty case in 2014 was $3.8 million vs. $1.3 million for life in prison.
- A New Hampshire study found that one death penalty case took 17 days for jury selection and 36 days for the trial, compared to just 3.5 days for jury selection and less than a week for the trial in an average non-death penalty case. The judge in the death penalty case spent 53 days working on it. He could have completed five comparable non-death penalty cases in the same time period.
Why does it cost so much?
- The vast majority of the costs are buried in a thicket of legal proceedings and hours spent by judges, clerks, prosecutors, and other law enforcement agencies. In the time it takes to pursue one capital murder case where the death penalty is on the table, law enforcement could investigate, prosecute, solve, and prevent scores of other crimes.
- The death penalty process is complicated because a life is on the line. Capital cases involve more lawyers, more witnesses, more experts, a longer jury selection process, more pre-trial motions, an entirely separate trial for sentencing, and countless other expenses – racking up exorbitant costs before a single appeal is even filed.
- Many death penalty trials are significantly flawed and are often re-tried, sometimes more than once, adding to the high cost.
- While a bulk of the cost is concentrated at the trial level, the appeals process is also a heavy burden on taxpayers. Executions themselves cost millions of dollars due to security concerns, transportation needs, and the resources needed to carry out the executions.
- Many of the extra costs are legally mandated to reduce the risk of executing an innocent person. But even these safeguards are not enough – over 200 people have been exonerated from death row.
Who pays for the death penalty?
- The costs of the death penalty are borne primarily by increasing taxes and cutting services like police and highway funding, with county budgets bearing the brunt of the burden.
- Jasper County, Texas, raised property taxes by nearly 7% just to pay for a single death penalty case. Two capital cases forced Jefferson County, Florida, to freeze employee raises and slash the library budget.
- The death penalty diverts resources that could be used for victim’s services – including grief and trauma counseling, scholarships for orphaned children, professional leave to attend court proceedings, financial compensation, and more.
- Police chiefs nationwide cite the death penalty as one of the most inefficient uses of taxpayer dollars. Surveys show that law enforcement would prefer strategies like adding more police to the force or reducing drug abuse as better ways to address violent crime.
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