[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Give them the death penalty, we can use the millions of tax dollars saved to use towards green research!

Given the absence of green text, I'm going to assume that you're not being sarcastic and are unaware that many studies have shown that executing an inmate in the US costs the taxpayers more money than keeping that same criminal in prison for life without parole.

Here's one such study:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/northcarolina.pdf

Comparing two hypothetical cases, one of which concludes with the defendant's execution after ten years on death row, and the other with the defendant serving 20 years in prison, yields an answer of $163 thousand as the extra cost for the capital case.

[...]

It is possible to use our data to make a rough estimate of the statewide costs incurred over a particular time period. Over the two-year period 1991 and 1992 there were a total of 94 defendants tried capitally (excluding retrials and resentencing hearings). Of these, 29 were sentenced to death. These capital trials would have cost the state and counties about $4.3 million less if they had proceeded noncapitally. If the death-sentenced cases follow a postconviction track similar to that of cases from previous years, the cost to the state will total about $2.8 minion for appeals and postconviction proceedings, and $1.4 million for retrials and resentencing proceedings ordered by the appellate courts. Recent history suggests that approximately 10 percent of the death-sentenced defendants will be executed, at a savings in imprisonment costs of $0.5 million.. Combining all these figures gives an overall extra cost on the order of $8 million, or an average of $4 million per year.

The extra costs of adjudicating murder cases capitally outweigh the savings in imprisonment costs. As it is currently implemented, the death penalty cannot be justified solely on the grounds of economy. The death penalty is usually justified on the basis that it offers public benefits in the form of greater deterrent and retributive value than life imprisonment; these benefits, if they exist, are not free, but rather come at a substantial cost to the public.