🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan08.181043.16982@Celestial.COM> bill@Celestial.COM (Bill Campbell) writes:
>In <1993Jan5.212321.23381@tera.com> erik@tera.com (Erik Hedberg) writes:
>
>....
>:Further clouding the issue is the fact that "life without parole" is
>:*cheaper* than execution.  Some people might not agree with this, but
>:this is what I was taught in a criminal law class in college.  You can
>:do the math for yourself.  If it costs $40K/yr to house inmates, and
>:about $100K to build a cell, and the "average" inmate in question is
>:sentenced at age 27, lives to age 75, this comes to (75-27)*40K + 100K
>:= $2.02M (in a new cell).  This is a lot, but the costs of appeals
>:easily exceeds this.  Remember, government pays the prosecutors,
>:defense attorneys, and the judges.  The figure we were taught (in
>:1975) was about $10M for capital appeals to be exhausted.
>:Streamlining the appeals process reduces the $10M, but it needs to be
>:cut by 80% to match the $2M.

What makes you think that with a life without parole, the convict isn't still
going to make $10M in apeals while in prison?  And your argument presupposes 
that every convict costs that much in appealing the death sentence, which for Dodd, it didn't.  I think the book you learned from was slightly slanted.  It is far cheaper to execute than support for life.  The room is already made, rope is cheap, a hangman gets paid by the job.  The grave cost is the same whether
the convict died from natural causes after live imprisonment or hanging.  Feeding, housing, medical, dental, guards, for life is a hell of a lot more expensive.  TTFN  



>
>Simple solution -- hang the lawyers!  This will eliminate the
>appeals and much of the backlog in the courts.
>
>Bill
>-- 
>INTERNET:  bill@Celestial.COM   Bill Campbell; Celestial Software
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>SPEED COSTS MONEY -- HOW FAST DO YOU WANT TO GO?