• More than a dozen states have found that death penalty cases are up to 4 times more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases.¹
• The most rigorous cost study in the country found that a single death sentence in Maryland costs almost $2 million more than a comparable non-death penalty case. Before ending the death penalty, Maryland spent $186 million extra to carry out just five executions.²
• The Indiana Legislative Services Agency estimates that the average cost of defense in a death penalty case is more than 10 times as expensive as in a case where the harshest possible sentence is life without parole. Even when you add in the costs of incarceration, a death penalty case is more than twice as expensive, and that doesn’t take into account the costs of the prosecution, trials, and other expenditures.³
• A lot has been written about the price of lethal injection drugs in Indiana, including the over $1.2 million spent on drugs for the last 3 executions.⁴ New methods are not likely to make executions any cheaper. Idaho officials have already spent more than $1 million to renovate the execution chamber for firing squad executions.⁵
• Who pays for the extra costs? A key study found that death penalty costs are borne primarily by increasing taxes and cutting services, with county budgets bearing the brunt of the burden.⁶ Parke County increased its income tax rate by .25% to pay for one death penalty case.⁷ Grant County took $500k from its road and street fund to pay for one. Both cases ended in a sentence of life without parole.⁸

Average Cost for Confinement & Legal Representation, per case
Death-Eligible Defendants, 1995-2020

Indiana Legislative Services Agency, Fiscal Impact Statement for HB 1030.

• The death penalty process is more complicated because a life is on the line. Capital cases involve more lawyers, more witnesses, more experts, a longer jury selection process, more pre-trial motions, an entirely separate trial for sentencing, and countless other expenses – racking up exorbitant costs before a single appeal is even filed.
• Most death penalty trials are found to be significantly flawed, resulting in nearly 66% of death sentences in Indiana being overturned.⁹ When prosecutors continue to seek death after a sentence is overturned, taxpayers have to pay for not just one but multiple capital trials.
• In most cases where the death penalty is sought, it is never imposed. And even when it is imposed, it is rarely carried out. Yet taxpayers are saddled with the death penalty’s extra costs even in cases where the defendant is not sentenced to death or executed.

• Much of the death penalty’s costs never shows up on a budget but rather in the long hours spent by judges, clerks, prosecutors and other law enforcement agencies – time that could be spent investigating, prosecuting, and even preventing other crimes.
• The death penalty diverts resources that could be used to help homicide survivors heal, including grief and trauma counseling, scholarships for orphaned children, professional leave to attend court proceedings, and financial support.
• Police chiefs nationwide rate the death penalty as one of the most inefficient uses of taxpayer dollars. Surveys show that law enforcement would prefer adding police or reducing drug abuse.¹¹

• Many of the death penalty’s extra costs are legally mandated to reduce the risk of executing an innocent person, but even these safeguards are not enough. At least 202 people have been exonerated from death row after waiting years for the truth to come out. ¹²Streamlining the lengthy process would only increase the risk of executing an innocent person.
• Even states with the fewest protections and a faster process face exorbitant death penalty costs. In Texas, for example, the death penalty still costs an average of three times more than 40 years in prison at maximum security.¹³