Chasing daylight.....

It's not cheap to kill people.

The following excerpts are from a news article published in The Hartford Courant,
(October 27, 2009) written by Susan Campbell.

"In the long, heated debate about capital punishment, we go round and round about justice or revenge, as if the two ideas operate independently of one another. We talk about about innocent people being sent to death, and the racial disparity among death row inmates. We talk about crimes so heinous they cry out for the ultimate punishment. But what if we talked about cost? Last week, the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center released a report that charts the cost - in dollars - of capital punishment.....

By some estimates, the country has spent $2.5 billion (yes THAT'S BILLION) since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. That's the conservative figure......

Last year, a California justice commission said the cash-strapped state (which has the most death row inmates in the country) was paying $137 million a year to maintain the death penalty; by comparison, the state would have spent $11.5 million a year if those same inmates were sentenced to life without parole.....

In a survey, police chiefs from around the country placed increased use of capital punishment last on a list of deterrents. Only about a quarter of the chiefs surveyed said murderers consider their possible punishment before they act. Fifty-seven percent said capital punishment does little to prevent violent crimes.....'They are not afraid to say what a lot of politicians won't say, that the death penalty isn't working', said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the D.C. center....."

I would like to add my question here as I wonder how many innocent men and women have been executed by the state - wrongly arrested, convicted and killed?