Tortorice on on Death Penalty Costs Versus Benefits

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Marla Tortorice has posted Costs Versus Benefits: The Fiscal Realities of the Death Penalty in Pennsylvania (University of Pittsburgh Law Review, Vol. 78, No. 519, 2017) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The death penalty has long been the subject of fervent debate. Much of this debate centers around normative judgments. Is it morally acceptable to “tinker with the machinery of death”? Does capital punishment violate the Eighth Amendment given our nation’s “evolving standards of decency”? This Note does not seek to address these questions, nor whether the death penalty is arbitrarily imposed or racially disparate. Rather, the goal of this Note is to focus on the death penalty’s utility, solely seeking to bring cognizance to the financial realities of a capital punishment system, particularly within Pennsylvania. 

Many other states have completed similar studies to help frame their debates. A cost-benefit analysis needs to be a part of the discussion of whether to continue to have the death penalty in Pennsylvania.

Leaving all other arguments aside, when comparing the results of these other studies, there is a significant probability that having a death penalty system is costing taxpayers millions of additional dollars a year while providing our society with benefits that a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole could provide just as effectively.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2019/02/tortorice-on-on-death-penalty-costs-versus-benefits.html

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Tortorice on on Death Penalty Costs Versus Benefits curated from CrimProf Blog