Hidden Costs of Death Penalty Revealed in Two New ACLU Reports

For the First Time, Records of Actual Trial Expenses are Analyzed
For Immediate Release: March 28, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO—California’s death penalty is costing us well over a $100 million each year, but no one is keeping track of just how much or why. In a new report titled “The Hidden Death Tax,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California reveals for the first time some of the hidden costs of California’s death penalty:

• One California death penalty trial cost more than $10.9 million; 

• California taxpayers pay at least $117 million each year post-trial seeking execution of the people currently on death row;

• Executing all of the people on death row will cost California an estimated $4 billion more than if they were all sentenced to die in prison of disease, injury or old age;

• Death penalty trials have substantial impacts on local prosecutors and law enforcement. Records reveal that in the Scott Peterson case, prosecution staff spent more than 20,000 hours on the case;

• T rial records reveal questionable costs, like more than $900 in dry cleaning charged to the county by prosecutors in one case.

The report will be presented Friday, March 28 in Santa Clara at the third and final hearing of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which is considering the problems with the state’s death penalty. The Commission hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. March 28 in the California Mission Room, Benson Student Center, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053.

“The Hidden Death Tax” concludes that not enough is being done to track death penalty expenses. The report recommends tracking more of these costs to provide greater transparency and accountability for a system that costs California hundreds of millions.

A second ACLU of Northern California report, “Death by Geography,” also to be released Friday, reveals that the vast majority of California counties have largely abandoned seeking execution in favor of simply sentencing people to die in prison. Just ten counties continue to aggressively sentence people to death row, accounting for nearly 85 percent of death sentences since 2000. But these counties have little else in common: Factors such as homicide rates, population densities, and voting patterns do not correlate with death sentencing.

Comparison with the non-death and low-death-penalty counties demonstrates seeking execution provides no benefit to the aggressive counties and, in fact, wastes significant resources that could be used for such community needs as solving more homicides or improving education.

Copies of the reports are  available online at:

www.aclunc.org/hidden_death_penalty_costs

Additional testimony and submissions on problems with California’s death penalty will be provided by prosecutors, law enforcement officials, judges and survivors of murder victims.