| From: The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland Executive Summary John Roman, Aaron Chalfin, Aaron Sundquist, Carly Knight, Askar Darmenov March 2008 (Published online by the Urban Institute) In 1978, the death penalty was reinstated in Maryland as a sentencing option for a defendant convicted of felony homicide. Between 1978 and September 1999, there were 1,227 homicides where the death penalty was a sentencing option. Of those, 1,136 cases resulted in a guilty verdict in the initial trial or through a plea agreement. In 162 cases, prosecutors filed a �death notice� seeking the death penalty. Fifty-six resulted in a death sentence, although the vast majority of those sentences were ultimately overturned. Since 1978, five people in Maryland have been executed. Five others remain on death row and are awaiting execution. In this study, we estimate the lifetime costs of processing these death eligible cases. RESEARCH BACKGROUND Prior research on the costs of capital punishment in other states unambiguously finds that capital cases are more expensive to prosecute than non-capital cases. However, much of the past research relied on limited data and generally studied only a small number of cases. This study tests whether the death penalty resulted in additional costs to Maryland taxpayers and fills a gap in the extant literature by accounting for potentially confounding factors not addressed in prior studies. A retrospective observational design was used to evaluate this question. Data used in this analysis were developed from several sources. The foundation for the analysis is case data collected by University of Maryland researchers for a 2004 study of disparities in the application of the death penalty in Maryland (Paternoster, Brame, Bacon and Ditchfield 2004). Paternoster and colleagues identified homicides that were eligible to be prosecuted as capital cases in Maryland. His sample includes all cases where the murder occurred between August 1978 and September 1999. From these data, we identified a census of death-eligible, guilty-verdict cases with 1,136 observations, including 162 cases in which a death notice was filed, and 56 death sentences. We estimate the total cost of processing these cases. In order to estimate the costs of each stage of case processing, we turned to two additional sources. First, we searched administrative databases containing official records on individual case processing, using the Maryland Judiciary Case Search (MDJCS) database and the federal PACER database. All records that matched our sample were coded into our research database. Second, estimates of the time attorneys, judges and support staff spent processing these cases were developed from semi-structured interviews and survey data. Complete administrative data on case processing were available for 509 of the 1,136 cases. This sample of 509 cases was weighted to resemble the population of 1,136. In addition, a propensity score analysis was conducted to adjust estimates to account for the possibility that capitally prosecuted cases may have been more egregious, on average, than the typical case that did not receive a death notice. If true, these cases would have been more expensive to prosecute even if no death statute had been in place. Finally, we estimate the cost to Maryland taxpayers associated with each stage of case processing. We estimated two key costs: 1) those associated with the filing of a death notice; and, 2) those associated with the imposition of a death sentence. We compared the costs for these cases with the cost of processing a capital-eligible case in which no death notice was filed. In this study, the no-death-notice cases represent the cost of processing a felony homicide case in Maryland as if there was no death penalty. KEY FINDINGS We find that both the filing of a death notice and the imposition of a death sentence added significantly to the cost of a case. For the average case, a death notice adds $670,000 in costs over the duration of a case. A death sentence adds an additional $1.2 million in processing costs. Thus the average total cost for a single death sentence is about $1.9 million over and above the cost of a similar case with no death penalty sought. About 70% of the added cost of a death notice case occurs during the trial phase. These additional costs are due to a longer pre-trial period, a longer and more intensive voir dire process, longer trials, more time spent by more attorneys preparing cases, and an expensive penalty phase trial that does not occur at all in non-death penalty cases. In addition, death notice cases are more likely to incur costs during the appellate phase even if there is no death sentence. TOTAL COSTS PER CASE � An average capital-eligible case in which the death sentence was not sought costs Maryland taxpayers more than $1.1 million over the life of the case - $870,000 in prison costs and $250,000 in adjudication costs. � An average capital-eligible case with a death notice costs the taxpayers of Maryland about $1.8 million. In other words, each case with a death notice filing costs $670,000 more than a no-death-notice case. Current and forecasted prison costs are about the same ($950,000 per case), but adjudication costs are more than three times greater ($850,000 per case) than in no-death-notice cases. � A capital-eligible case that results in a death sentence adds another $1.2 million in costs. The total cost to the taxpayers of Maryland approximately $3 million, more than $1.9 million more per case than a no-death-notice case. Current and forecasted prison costs are higher for death sentence cases ($1.3 million) than no-death-notice cases, and adjudication costs total $1.7 million. SUMMARY OF TOTAL COSTS TO THE STATE We find there are substantial costs to the citizens of Maryland associated with the death penalty. � 56 individuals received a death sentence � at an additional cost to Maryland citizens of $108 million. � There were an additional 106 cases where a death sentence was sought but not handed down � at an additional cost of $71 million. � The availability of the death penalty has required the state to operate the Capital Defense Division, with costs more than $7 million for activities not included elsewhere in this study during the period 1978 to 2008. In sum, we estimate the total cost of the death penalty to Maryland taxpayers for cases that began between 1978 and 1999 to be at least $186 million. A conservative approach was used to develop these estimates. Thus, this estimate does not include some costs of the death penalty that could not be empirically tested. These include additional pre-trial costs of cases in which a death notice is filed but subsequently waived, the costs of cases tried under a death notice that resulted in a not guilty verdict, and costs of appeals to the United States Supreme Court. If these expenditures could be estimated, they would likely increase the total cost to Maryland taxpayers. |