U.S. | Costs and the Death Penalty

DPI’s ​“What to Know” series exam­ines cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment from mul­ti­ple angles, one top­ic at a time.

Each install­ment pro­vides essen­tial facts and data on spe­cif­ic aspects of the death penal­ty. This install­ment looks at the costs asso­ci­at­ed with pur­suit of death sen­tences and executions.

Why it mat­ters: The ques­tion at the heart of this issue is whether the assumed ben­e­fits of the death penal­ty are worth its costs and whether oth­er sys­tems might pro­vide sim­i­lar ben­e­fits at less cost.

"It is a sim­ple fact that seek­ing the death penal­ty is more expen­sive. There is not one cred­i­ble study, to our knowl­edge, that presents evi­dence to the contrary." — From An Analysis of the Economic Costs of Capital Punishment in Oklahoma, Prepared for the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, 2017

Key Facts: 

• According to recent esti­mates, the death penal­ty costs tax­pay­ers 2.5 to 5 times more than life imprisonment.
• Studies have con­sis­tent­ly con­firmed cap­i­tal cas­es take longer and incur much high­er tri­al and appeal costs than non-cap­i­tal cas­es. In a recent case, a Texas dis­trict attor­ney aban­doned a six-year quest for the death penal­ty before the start of a tri­al on state charges after spend­ing $6 million.
• Compensation for wrong­ful con­vic­tion can also be high in death penal­ty cas­es: Glynn Simmons received $7.15 mil­lion in con­nec­tion with his exon­er­a­tion in 2024.
• Incarcerating peo­ple who are sen­tenced to death requires 2 – 3 times more resources than average prisoners.
• Non-cap­i­tal tri­als do not involve the addi­tion­al expense asso­ci­at­ed with executions.
• Costs esti­mates for states seek­ing to rein­state the death penal­ty are considerable.

Overview: What Makes the Death Penalty so Expensive?

Studies con­sis­tent­ly show that the death penal­ty is sig­nif­i­cant­ly more expen­sive than life impris­on­ment, with recent esti­mates around the coun­try rang­ing from 2.5 to 5 times the cost. Factors con­tribut­ing to high­er costs in cap­i­tal cas­es include the need for a larg­er, unique­ly qual­i­fied legal defense team; more com­plex pre­tri­al pro­ce­dures, tri­als, appeals and retri­als; addi­tion­al secu­ri­ty and staff dur­ing tri­al and incar­cer­a­tion; com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ful con­vic­tions; and expen­sive drugs and mate­ri­als for exe­cu­tion. Trial costs can be fur­ther com­pound­ed when pros­e­cu­tors decide to pur­sue anoth­er death sen­tence even after their own mis­con­duct has result­ed in an order for a new trial.

Studies Confirm: Capital Cases Take Longer and Incur Much Higher Trial and Appeal Costs Than Non-Capital Cases

How much the death penal­ty actu­al­ly costs in time and mon­ey and how that com­pares to a sys­tem in which a life sen­tence is the max­i­mum pun­ish­ment has been deter­mined by many sophis­ti­cat­ed research stud­ies, most at the state lev­el. The con­clu­sions are con­sis­tent: cap­i­tal tri­als are more lengthy and expen­sive than non-capital trials.

Death penal­ty cas­es are unques­tion­ably more time inten­sive. Studies show cap­i­tal cas­es take any­where from twice to six times longer in court than oth­er homi­cide cas­es. One study found the time from charg­ing a defen­dant to final sen­tenc­ing in death cas­es took almost four times longer than in non-cap­i­tal cas­es (1,902 days ver­sus 526 days). State supreme court jus­tices par­tic­i­pat­ing in a study by the Kansas Judicial Council report­ed devot­ing 20 times as many hours to write the lead opin­ion for a death penal­ty case, com­pared to a non-death penalty case.

Longer cas­es nec­es­sar­i­ly result in high­er costs. A 2021 report by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission eval­u­at­ed both quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive stud­ies from a vari­ety of states and found that death penal­ty cas­es cost between 2.5 and 5 times more than non-cap­i­tal cas­es. According to the report, in some states, cap­i­tal cas­es require between $1 mil­lion and $3 mil­lion more per case than cas­es seek­ing life impris­on­ment. A 2025 review by the non­par­ti­san Legislative Services Agency com­piled in response to House Bill 1030, found that try­ing a death penal­ty case in Indiana costs eight times more than a case seek­ing to impose life with­out parole ($290,022 ver­sus $36,173).

"Case in Point: In 2025, in response to sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers’ wish­es, the El Paso County, Texas, District Attorney dropped the death penal­ty against Patrick Crusius in exchange for a guilty plea, after spend­ing $6 mil­lion. Mr. Crusius, who suf­fers from severe men­tal ill­ness (SMI) was already serv­ing 90 fed­er­al life sen­tences in con­nec­tion with the racial­ly-moti­vat­ed mur­ders of 23 peo­ple at a Walmart in 2019." — Source: Texans Against the Death Penalty, 2025 Annual Report

Trials in which pros­e­cu­tors seek the death penal­ty also incur high­er legal costs than cas­es with­out the death penal­ty because of the inten­sive pros­e­cu­tion and defense efforts required to inves­ti­gate and present the case. In a doc­u­ment pre­pared for the Kentucky leg­is­la­ture in 2019, Damon Preston, the Public Advocate of Kentucky, not­ed that cap­i­tal cas­es typ­i­cal­ly involve two to three attor­neys dur­ing the entire dura­tion of the case, as well as expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als such as cap­i­tal inves­ti­ga­tors, mit­i­ga­tion spe­cial­ists that must inves­ti­gate the defendant’s life his­to­ry, and oth­ers. Prosecution expens­es are sim­i­lar­ly high, but a break­down of costs is not typ­i­cal­ly made public.

"Case in Point: A 2025 inves­ti­ga­tion into more than 300 cas­es since 2005 where Maricopa County, Arizona pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty found only 13% result­ed in death sen­tences. In the case of Jodi Arias, who was con­vict­ed in 2013 for killing her boyfriend, Maricopa County pros­e­cu­tors twice sought the death penal­ty, and twice the jury dead­locked. She was sen­tenced to life in prison. According to offi­cials at the time, the two tri­als cost the coun­ty $3.2 million." — Source: Joint inves­ti­ga­tion by ProPublica and ABC15 , June 2025.

The gen­er­al­ly high cost of the death penal­ty is com­pound­ed when pros­e­cu­tors decide to pur­sue anoth­er death sen­tence — some­times even after their own mis­con­duct has result­ed in an order for a new tri­al. In 2025 Death Penalty Information Center ana­lyzed nine indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death four or more times for the same crime who were per­ma­nent­ly removed from death row. The analy­sis found the indi­vid­u­als col­lec­tive­ly expe­ri­enced at least 43 cap­i­tal tri­als or sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings — only for juries, courts, or pros­e­cu­tors to ulti­mate­ly deter­mine that life in prison was the appro­pri­ate sen­tence.1

Compensation for Wrongful Convictions Also Drives Up the Cost of Death Penalty Cases

Not every­one sen­tenced to death is guilty, and com­pen­sat­ing those who have been wrong­ly con­vict­ed adds anoth­er lay­er of expense to the cost of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. At least 202 indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death in 30 states have been exon­er­at­ed since 1973, with as many as 12 exon­er­a­tions in a giv­en year (2003). DPI has iden­ti­fied anoth­er 21 indi­vid­u­als who were exe­cut­ed where there is strong evi­dence of their inno­cence. At least 20 more have been declared inno­cent posthu­mous­ly since 2000.

In most of these cas­es, those wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed seek com­pen­sa­tion for their time on death row. Given the loss of lib­er­ty, rep­u­ta­tion, and oppor­tu­ni­ty for employ­ment, com­pen­sa­tion amounts are jus­ti­fi­ably high. According to a fis­cal note com­plied by the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) to accom­pa­ny a bill intro­duced in 2025 that sought to com­pen­sate both cap­i­tal­ly and non-cap­i­tal­ly-charged exon­er­at­ed indi­vid­u­als, the cost to com­pen­sate an indi­vid­ual for ​“past erro­neous con­vic­tions” would be $937,5001. This esti­mate is low for cap­i­tal­ly charged indi­vid­u­als. In 2024, the city of Edmond, Oklahoma agreed to pay $7.15 mil­lion to Glynn Simmons, the longest-incar­cer­at­ed inno­cent per­son in the United States.

Incarcerating People Who are Sentenced to Death Requires 2 – 3 Times More Resources

Many states’ death rows are housed in spe­cial, high-secu­ri­ty facil­i­ties, and indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death are often in soli­tary con­fine­ment. According to an Urban Institute Justice Policy Center research report, super­max pris­ons are 2 – 3 times cost­lier to con­struct and oper­ate than max­i­mum secu­ri­ty pris­ons due to sin­gle-capac­i­ty prison cells and enhanced secu­ri­ty require­ments. In oth­er sit­u­a­tions, such as Kansas, where indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death are instead placed in admin­is­tra­tive seg­re­ga­tion instead of a sep­a­rate death row, the cost of hous­ing pris­on­ers dou­bles, at a cost of $49,380 each year to house death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers ver­sus $24,690 to house pris­on­ers in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. Florida’s Broward County jail report­ed spend­ing more than $2.5 mil­lion to house and super­vise Nikolas Cruz dur­ing his cap­i­tal tri­al in which he was ulti­mate­ly sen­tenced to life without parole.

Non-Capital Trials Do Not Involve the Additional Expenses Associated With Executions

The cost of the bar­bi­tu­rate pen­to­bar­bi­tal, the drug com­mon­ly used to per­form lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions, is extreme­ly high. In October 2025, Indiana Governor Mike Braun dis­closed the state had spent $1.175 mil­lion on drug sup­plies over the past two years. Between 2017 and 2020, Tennessee report­ed­ly spent $95,000 on lethal injec­tion drugs per exe­cu­tion. According to records obtained by The Guardian, in October 2020, Arizona spent $1.5 mil­lion on 1,000 one-gram vials of pen­to­bar­bi­tal. According to the same report­ing by The Guardian, Harvard med­ical school lec­tur­er Prashant Yadav esti­mates that some states pay as much as a 1,000% markup on exe­cu­tion drugs in com­par­i­son to the typ­i­cal mar­ket price, due to lack of regulation.

Idaho is tak­ing a dif­fer­ent — yet still cost­ly — approach to exe­cu­tions. A 2023 law passed by Governor Brad Little autho­rized the use of the fir­ing squad as a method of exe­cu­tion. The law includ­ed an esti­mat­ed cost of $750,000 to ren­o­vate Idaho’s Maximum Security Institution to make it suit­able for this new exe­cu­tion method, in line with leg­is­la­tion passed in 2025 mak­ing this the state’s pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion, effec­tive July 1, 2026.

The Cost of Reinstating the Death Penalty is Also Considerable

No state that has abol­ished the death penal­ty in the mod­ern era (since 1973) has rein­stat­ed it sub­se­quent­ly, but in some states, leg­is­la­tors con­tin­ue to try to do so. Over the past two leg­isla­tive ses­sions, West Virginia has con­sid­ered two bills, SB 1037 and SB 264 that pro­pose to rein­state the death penal­ty, which was abol­ished in the state 60 years ago. Estimates that accom­pa­nied both bills sug­gest the cost of rein­state­ment would be con­sid­er­able. The West Virginia Division of Corrections (WVDOC) and Rehabilitation esti­mates $25 mil­lion for new facil­i­ties (“a 75 bed unit for Death Row inmates”) and at least $1.4 mil­lion for new per­son­nel and train­ing and hous­ing of pris­on­ers (with infla­tion dri­ving those costs ​“sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er”), plus an addi­tion­al $200,000 in annu­al costs to hire an expe­ri­enced attor­ney to han­dle death penal­ty cas­es for the WVDOC, and an unspec­i­fied amount for ​“an exe­cu­tion cham­ber to be con­struct­ed.” The WVDOC esti­mat­ed that ​“It would cost the agency approx­i­mate­ly $1,418,080.00 based on today’s cost per inmate to house and car­ry out the exe­cu­tion of sen­tence.” The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia esti­mat­ed that it would cost rough­ly $117,000 for an addi­tion­al staff attor­ney to handle appeals.

Footnotes

1. DPI’s Death Penalty Census tracks all death sen­tences and out­comes but does not include resen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ings that did not end in a death sen­tence. Number of trials/​sentencing pro­ceed­ings for the same crime: Curtis Flowers (6), Andrea H. Jackson (5), James Morgan (5), Dayton LeRoy Rogers (5), Lacey Mark Sivak (5), Phillip Tomlin (5), Randy Lee Guzek (4), Robert Paul Langley (4), Michael Martin McDonnell (4) 

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Pam Quanrud, March 9, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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