Issue of the Week: The Death Sentence

1. How much does it cost to put someone to death?
The cost varies for each state that has the death penalty. I found out that sometimes to put someone on death row can be even more expensive than putting them in jail for life, which is surprising. In Texas a death penalty case costs an average of 2.3 million dollars, which is 3 times the cost of putting someone in a single cell at highest security for 40 years!

2. What are the methods of execution of a prisoner?
The most commonly used way of executing someone is lethal injection. 1052 people have been put to death this way. Electrocution is another way of executing someone on the death row. 157 people have been put to death this way. There are also gas chambers, hanging and a firing squad.

3. How many people have been killed that were innocent?
I researched this question further and there can not be a exact number to determine how many innocent people have died on the death row. But I also found out that since 1973, over 130 people have been found innocent and released form the death row before acutally being killed. From 1973-1999 there was an average of 3.1 exonerations per year. From 2000-2007 there has been an average of 5 exonerations per year. (An exoneration occurs when a person who has been convicted of a crime is later proved to have been innocent of that crime.)

Sources:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf