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This Won't Hurt a Bit<br>
It's Expensive
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1997 August 15<br>
Friday<br>
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It costs a lot more to kill someone than it does to keep him alive in prison for the rest of his life. The cost of all the appeals that result from a death sentence is higher than the average cost of keeping the prisoner alive until the end of his natural life. The last figure I saw was $3,000,000 in legal and court costs for each prisoner executed. If the average criminal is going to live 40 years at $40,000 per year, it is considerably cheaper to keep him alive.
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There is a lot of talk about "streamlining the appeals process" in order to reduce costs and speed up executions. This can only increase the likelihood of executing innocent people.
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