Cost vs. Benefit

Frederick Block, a judge in the US District Court, thinks that the cost-benefit ratio engendered by the rise in death penalty prosecutions (they've increased from 18 per year in the 1990s to 40 per year in this century) is not a favorable one.

The prosecutions are costly to the state, as often the defendants have no money and the state has to pay for the prosecution and the defense. In Block's experience a typical death penalty case can cost the state $1,000,000. This comes at a time when the budgets for federal courts has been sharply reduced. In fact, they have been reduced to such a level in NYC that there is no money for marshals to protect jurors in some cases.

The cases take a lot of time to be prepared for both defense and prosecution and, since appeals are virtually guaranteed, can go on for a long time. Naturally, not every prosecution results in a conviction. Of those tried under the federal rules, only 50 have been convicted and, of those, only three have been executed.One judge, a conservative, concluded that, "whatever purposes the death penalty is said to serve.... those purposes are not served by the system as it now operates."

All federal death penalty prosecutions have to be authorized by the Attorney General. Block advises him to be 'more circumspect'.