>>http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/20/news/economy/california_death_penalty/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2
>>
>>$4 billion since 1978 on California's capital punishment system + only 13 executions =t $308 million per execution. Wow.
>
>As you may know I'm a liberal in most things but the death penalty is one I support. I hate the idea of paying tax dollars to support the worst mass murderers or terrorists in prison. I wouldn't want to support Timothy McVeigh in prison, would you? Or Osama Bin Ladin? And nowadays regular murderers (with robbery,rape,etc *not crimes of passion) seem to only get 5-15 years sentences!? What happened to the good old days when murder would get you the chair?? The bottom line is that if they did this efficiently without a lot of legal wrangling it wouldn't cost as much. But i don't know if that's possible.

The legal wrangling is exactly the point. When you take the cost of prosecution and appeals into account, it costs more to execute a man than to imprison him for the rest of his life. That is not my primary view of capital punishment (actually I am against it because I think it's barbaric) but the economic argument doesn't hold water.