Death Penalty Costs Texas Taxpayers More Than Life in Prison by Elizabeth Williams December 5, 2013 On Tuesday, Texas

executed its 16th prisoner of the year. Jerry Martin was sentenced to death by legal injection for the death of a corrections officer. While it has been argued that the death penalty not only gives closure to victims of crime but also costs less than keeping an inmate in prison until their natural death, the deaths of Martin and the 15 other inmates executed this year cost the state approximately $2.3 million each. These costs can be attributed mainly to the trials needed to sentence someone to death. Sentencing someone to death requires two trials, the second being a sentencing trial to determine whether or not the case deserves the death penalty. High legal costs, the appeals process, the higher cost of keeping inmates on death row and the cost of the execution itself bring the total of executing an inmate to approximately three times as much as keeping an inmate in solitary, maximum security for 40 years. Counties finance death penalty cases with their own taxpayers dollars. Because of this, some of the smaller or poorer counties in the state do not seek the death penalty because they do not have the financial resources to carry out the entire process. In addition to a county funding their own death penalty cases, all state taxpayers fund the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), which houses the states prison system. TDCJ operates on a budget of approximately $2.9 billion for 2012 and 2013, aiding in 2012s 15 executions and 2013s 16 executions. Harris County, the Texas county that includes the Houston-Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan area, has executed the most inmates out of any American county since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The personal income for people living in Houston and its suburbs is 11.5 percent higher than the national average. This exemplifies the concept that larger, wealthier counties pursue the death penalty because they have the resources. In 2012, the state appropriated $922,135 for death penalty habeas representation, or representation during the appeal of a death penalty trial. In 2013, the state appropriated $862,136 for death penalty habeas representation. Less than $1 million for both of these years was appropriated to represent inmates against the death penalty.

Costs of Death Penalty vs. Life in Prison 2,500,000 2,300,000

2,000,000

1,500,000
Cost

Death Penalty Life in Prison 750,000

1,000,000

500,000

0 Imprisonment Type