Death Penalty Essay

Submitted By carinavans
Words: 363
Pages: 2

Carina Van Slochteren

Cons side of death penalty:

In the United States there have been 1321 executions, with Texas having the most to report according to the Death Penalty Information Center (2013), this costing tax payer billions and billions of dollars. On an average it cost 308 million dollars in the state of California to execute one person; while it only cost around 1 million to have an inmate incarcerated for life without parole. Not only is it inhumane to execute someone it is expensive. The federal government paid over 100 million dollars in order to fight to have the Oklahoma bomber executed, Ted Bundy case ran around the figure of 10 million in order prosecute and sentence him to death. (2011 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE)
Since 1977 there have been 142 inmates exonerated after spending an average of 9.8 years on death row. These inmates were exonerated after years of filing appeals to the supreme courts. During these appeals the inmates are being retried; each time an appeal is filed there has to be sort of new evidence in the case. In the reason years there have been new developments in how to test DNA; this has caused many criminal cases to reopen in order to test evidence in long awaited cases. Out of the 142 inmates that have been exonerated 18 of them have been through these DNA test (2013 Death Penalty Information Center).
The number of inmate that have been innocent and put to death is unclear. Once the inmate has been put to death the legal cost of