Even then, the CCFAJ finds that the extra money that taxpayers pay for the death penalty does not provide adequate funding for defense counsels, has a costly appeals process, and puts innocent people at risk for execution. CCFAJ estimates that to fully fund the death penalty system would cost even more, raising the taxpayer costs in California to approximately $233 million a year.

Permanent imprisonment without the possibility of parole is the most cost-effective alternative to sentencing California's 677 inmates to death. No one sentenced to permanent imprisonment has ever been released. CCFAJ estimates that replacing the death penalty system with a permanent imprisonment system would only cost Californians $11.5 million per year.

Trial Costs

Unfortunately, the true trial costs for death penalty cases remain hidden, undisclosed to the public, because county district attorneys are not formally required to account for trial expenses unless they are seeking reimbursement from the state. The CCFAJ conservatively estimates that each death penalty trial costs at least $500,000.

In larger counties, the costs are closer to $1.1 million. On average, prosecutors in California seek the death penalty in 40 trials per year. As a result, using the most conservative cost estimate of $500,000, Californians spend at least $20 million per year paying for death penalty trial costs.

Appeal Costs

Excess trial and appeal costs accrue because additional lawyers, investigators, and expert witnesses are needed to guarantee the due process of law, a Fifth Amendment constitutional right. Appeals are both obligatory and necessary to ensure procedural fairness, therefore their costs are unavoidable. As a result, California annually spends $54.4 million per year on appeal costs.

Post-Conviction Costs

The additional cost of housing an inmate on death row is estimated at $90,000 versus the roughly $34,000 cost of housing the regular population. For California's 677 death row inmates this means taxpayers are paying a total of $60.9 million a year just for special inmate housing.

Adding up appeal costs per year ($54.4 million) and confinement costs ($60.9 million) per year tells us that Californians spends at least $115 million on post-conviction costs per year after the initial sentencing in death penalty cases. Because the appeals process is a lengthy and necessary process, only 14 inmates from California have been executed since 1978. As a result, confinement costs will continue to grow as more people are sentenced to death.

There are currently 39 inmates on death row from San Diego County, which have cost California taxpayers around $3.5 million in confinement costs per year. The longest serving death row inmate from San Diego County, Bernard Hamilton, was sentenced to death in 1981 for a crime he committed in 1979. For the 27 years Bernard Hamilton has spent on death row, taxpayers spent an estimated $2.4 million in housing him. Had he been sentenced to permanent imprisonment, taxpayers would have only spent a total of $922,000 on housing (less than one half).

Total Costs

Every year, California spends roughly $20 million in death penalty trials, $54.4 million in death penalty appeals, and $60.9 million in death penalty confinement, for a total of $135 million a year. If prosecutors had pursued permanent imprisonment instead, taxpayers would have spent only $11.5 million a year, saving an estimated $123.5 million a year.

Cost to San Diego Taxpayers

The CCFAJ estimates that death penalty trials cost counties like San Diego at least $1.1 million more than conventional murder trials. The actual cost is unknown. Until San Diego County is required to start accounting for and disclosing death penalty expenses, the true costs to local taxpayers will remain hidden.

At an estimated rate of $1.1 million per trial, San Diego County taxpayers have spent more than $39 million on the trials of the 39 inmates from the county who are currently on death row. Many more millions of dollars have been spent on trials that have not resulted in death penalty convictions. Of the 39 inmates sent to death row from this county, 9 have been sent since the year 2000, costing a total of at least $9.9 million dollars.

While appeal and post-conviction costs are shared by all California taxpayers, trial costs in the county are shouldered by San Diego County taxpayers alone. As taxpayers, we must ask ourselves if the high cost of pursuing death penalty sentences is the best use of our resources, especially in light of the fact that the death penalty does not appear to make us any safer. Whether someone is sentenced to death or to permanent imprisonment, they are off the streets forever. No one sentenced to either has ever been released unless they were exonerated because they were innocent.

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