issourians have a right to know the costalong with societal benefits and/or impactof all tax-funded public programs,

including the death penalty. In the 35 years since officials legislatively returned capital punishment to Missouri statutes, however, no comparative fiscal review has yet taken place. SB 786 was voted Do Pass by the Senate Government Oversight Committee last month but has yet to be placed on the calendar for floor debate. The bill would direct the State Auditor to conduct roughly a twoyear study, comparing costs in an equal sample number of three categories of first-degree murder cases:

Time for Answers: How Much Does the Death Penalty Cost Missouri Taxpayers?

Those in which death sentences were pursued and obtained; Those where it was pursued but not obtained; and Cases that pursued life without the possibility of parole (LWOP).

Regardless of how one feels about the death penalty, legislators are tasked with practicing sound stewardship of public funds, which is the central principle of SB 786. Such fiscal scrutiny is particularly imperative as officials struggle to close a roughly $500 million shortfall before the May 11 deadline for passing budget bills. Cuts appear destined to be carved out of many programs, including preschool, higher education, public safety and infrastructure budgets.

ow many $Millions Missouri spends on the death penalty, meanwhile, remains essentially a state secret, and concerned citizens have so far had to turn elsewhere for answers. About a dozen states have had studies conducted. All have found that the death penalty costs far morefrom 30-percent to 1,000-percent morethan pursuing and implementing LWOP or other types of life sentences for murder.

A study from Nevada reported earlier this month found that each capital murder case costs between $170,000 to $212,000 more, in public-defense attorney expenses alone, than cases in the same county in which death sentences were not pursued. The University of Nevada study reported that the state will pay an additional $15 million, solely on defense expenses, in 80 pending murder cases if officials pursue death sentences rather than alternative sentences such as LWOP. California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system, concluded a 2011 state report. Donald Heller, a former prosecutor who wrote the state's death penalty law, now instead supports LWOP, calling the current system a "colossal failure The cost of our system of capital punishment is so enormous that any benefit that could be obtained from it and now I think theres very little or zero benefit is so dollar-wasteful that it serves no effective purpose." California has not carried out an execution in six years, and has about 720 prisoners on death row. How much are we spending here in Missouri? We urge lawmakers to support SB 786 or a similar measure during the closing weeks of the 2012 session. .
This flyer is part of a series prepared by Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. For more information, contact MADP at 816-931-4177 or visit our website at www.madpmo.org.