Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket.

  • maryjayjay@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    In the US it usually three times more expensive to put someone to death than to incarcerate them for life

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Wow today I learned!

      There’s no good summary that I found in my five mins of research, and a lot of it came from https://deathpenaltyinfo.org, which appears to be a very biased nonprofit against the death penalty.

      But the info seems consistent all around. It costs more because since it’s such a big deal for the state to kill somebody, the legal costs skyrocket dramatically. Hence, it’s more expense.

      https://www.quora.com/How-is-lethal-injection-more-expensive-than-the-costs-of-having-someone-serve-a-life-sentence

      Again, 5 minutes of research. Somebody correct me. It still smells a bit funny if this cost is lifetime of the prisoner vs someone who has life in prison for multiple decades.

      • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
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        10 months ago

        The costs come from years if not decades of appeals that are legally required after someone is sentenced to death, among other things like the cost of the chemicals used for lethal injection.

        Factually, the anti death penalty advocates are correct about the expense argument, but it’s largely of their own doing because they’re the ones who imposed those expenses on the government by pushing for such laws. They literally largely made it a problem.

        • ???@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          But do you have any research that shows it reduces or deters crime?

          • Pat_Riot@lemmy.today
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            10 months ago

            That is not and never has been the reason for capital punishment. The kind of people who should be executed are not doing the kind of crimes that are deterred. The point is to remove the individual who is not compatible with society.