I guess I don’t understand all the factors involved. Seems to me that sticking needle in a convict’s arm and pumping some drug concoction (y) into them after 10 years of paying their room and board (X) equals ($X * 10)+ y. While the life sentence is $X * 40 ... or more. Is the y really that expensive?
When they say it’s cheaper to have a life sentence rather than have the death penalty, they are adding in all of the court costs and legal fees for the multiple legal appeals which death row inmates get. So it goes far beyond the prison costs of keeping the inmates in prison.
Way I understand it is that death penalties generate appeals. Every appeal must be answered and costs the state money. Every time. Over and over again. For decades. (Not to mention the opportunity for an dirtbag to become cause celebre and Sean Penn’s new best friend forever, or until...)
And a trial where the death penalty is on the table costs more to prosecute than a life-without-parole (no appeals) trial.
If this is not true and, on the whole, the eventual syringe is cheaper than languishing, forgotten and anonymous in cramped squalor (life-without-parole) then I change my mind.