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Nickel-and-Dimed to Death

By standdown

That's the subtitle of a report at North Carolina's Indy Week, "The high cost of the death penalty," written by Matt Saldana.The cheapest part of executing a prisoner is the killing itself. The state's procedure of lethal injection costs about $500: $168 in medicine and syringes, plus roughly $340 for the doctor, who is present for three to four hours, according to the N.C. Department of Correction. (See details below.) Yet court fees related to capital trials, those in which prosecutors seek the death penalty for murder, cost North Carolina millions of dollars. The costs are incurred even if the charges are reduced or dismissed. Given the state's budget crisis, which has forced lawmakers to cut funding for education, social services and children's health insurance, money spent on pursuing death penalty cases arguably could be better used...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on June 25, 2009 (boomark / email).