[pandoraou812]

Why? If we pay to keep somebody alive for 20 years when we could kill them in minutes how do you figure? I know when I’ve had to put my cat down it was only $40 for the injection. But feeding, housing, health-care & protecting killers costs less? Show proof please, I’m interested in seeing this... To me that sounds impossible

[Publius Valerius]

Sure thing. Duke University did an extensive study some years ago. The cost of execution is not in the execution itself, as you pointed out, but the cost of the process of execution. The defendant is provided with a team of attorneys (paid for by the state), a lengthy number of appeals, the cost of prosecution, the judicial costs, etc.

Here's a link to the study.

http://www.thejusticeproject.org/press/reports/pdfs/21740.pdf