Just curious. What are some of those rare circumstances you reference?
Second question: do you think it is right to make the taxpayers support these vermin for the rest of their natural lives? (Incidentally, I would think the death sentence appropriate for more than just murder; we have lots of "things" behind bars that do not deserve to live ever again in society.)
As far as the taxpayers paying the cost, they may be horrible people, but they are people. I believe human life is created by God, and I don't believe in taking that life unless there is a real threat there. Also, I know there are conflicting views on this, but if you look this up, you can find articles getting into costs, and based on on these, it's cheaper to actually take care of a person for life in prison than to execute that person. For example:
Citing Richard C. Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center, Fox reported that studies have “uniformly and conservatively shown that a death-penalty trial costs $1 million more than one in which prosecutors seek life without parole.”
A Urban Institute study (downloads as a pdf) found that “[i]n Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case” while a 2004 Report from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Research that claimed “[i]n Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment.”
And in cash strapped California, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice issued a report (downloads as a pdf) that concluded, among other things, that “[i]t can certainly be said that death penalty trials take longer and cost considerably more than non-death murder trials.”
I assumed that this was because of all of the post-trial finagling that goes on. I was wrong. After reviewing data from state reports, Amnesty International concluded that “the greatest costs associated with the death penalty occur prior to and during trial, not in post-conviction proceedings. Even if all post-conviction proceedings (appeals) were abolished, the death penalty would still be more expensive than alternative sentences.”
The numbers associated with jail time are just as large. In terms of dollars spent behind bars, the California Commission found that “the additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.” Since that statement, California’s death row has grown to 721, the largest in the country.
The story is the same in North Carolina. A 2010 Duke University study found that taxpayers in the Tarheel State could save $11 million a year by substituting life in prison for the death penalty.
The numbers are even more dramatic in Garden State. Prior to the abolishing the death penalty in the state, a report by New Jersey Policy Perspectives found that “New Jersey taxpayers over the last 23 years have paid more than a quarter billion dollars on a capital punishment system that has executed no one.”
But the end result is worth it, right?
Maybe not. At least ten states, including Florida, Texas and California, have been forced to release prisoners early because of overcrowding – all of those states have expensive death penalty programs. Budgetary restraints have resulted in shortened sentences (some as low as 20%) and lay-offs of corrections officers inside prisons, as well as reduced numbers of police officers on the streets. More telling, in one Washington county, Prosecutor Dan Satterberg was forced to eliminate the jobs of 36 prosecutors since 2008 – all while the cost of defending two active capital cases escalated.
Who pays those costs? You and I. State and local governments typically bear the burden of paying to pursue death penalty cases – and that means tax dollars. Even prosecutors agree that those costs aren’t always worth it.
Raising taxes to pay for death penalty prosecutions isn’t going to win over many taxpayers even though such increases have happened in some counties (as it did notoriously in Lincoln County, Georgia). However, the alternatives – cutting police or releasing prisoners early –are hardly appealing.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2011/09/22/death-and-taxes-the-real-cost-of-the-death-penalty/
Additionally, you speak of supporting these people for the rest of their lives and bring up the point there are a lot of other criminals imprisoned that do not deserve to live. If a person has a life in prison, it's pretty certain that person committed a horrible crime(unless an innocent person was found guilty and that happens). However, we don't kill everyone who has committed heinous crimes, and we support those people for the rest of their lives. Now we could expand the death penalty to the people serving life who commmitted violent crimes, but that would be a lot of people the state would be killing. I'm not comfortable with that. It becomes pretty subjective on who lives and who dies. Plus, you consider what I posted above about increased costs, and it wouldn't be cost efficient.
Many of the people executed have been in prison for many years without incident. It seems to me to be ridiculous to pull them out and kill them. Keep them in their isolated confinement for their rest of their lives. Now of course I brought up exceptions to that above. However, I'm a big believer that God created life, and God should take it.