While waiting for a sentence after being found guilty of the murder of a fellow gang

member, Billy Johnson asked to be sent to death row. However, his request did not
sprung from a sense of guilt or desire to be punished. Billy Johnson believed he
would have better living conditions while in death row instead of serving a life long
sentence, with the possibility of never being executed. (FIXME CITATION) This
incident happened in the state of California, where it takes an average of 20 years
to execute a prisoner from the day of conviction. Experts on both sides of the
death-penalty debate have long agreed that Californias system is the nations
costliest and least efficient.(FIXME) While California might have the costliest
system, other states, including Texas, spend roughly two times more money to
execute a prisoner than what it would have been spent to keep someone
imprisoned for life. This high costs contribute to the increasing national debt and,
ultimately, will affect taxpayers. The cost of the death penalty has become a
problem that has the potential to affect citizens in which it is used the most, such as
Texas. This paper will not discuss whether the death penalty is right or wrong, as
this does not represent a tangible problem. This paper will discuss how ineffective
the death penalty is in its current state, from financial viewpoint, and will explore
possible solutions to this financial problem.
According to the Connecticut General Assembly, death row inmates have better
living conditions than some prisoners serving for life for a similar crime. For
example, death row inmates are visited by staff every 15 minutes, whereas
prisoners convicted of a similar crime spend most of their days in solitary
confinement. Also, special facilities are built to accommodate death row inmates.
(FIX) In Texas each case of death penalty costs about $2.3 million. (Fix) While it is
true that accommodations and upkeep is a big part of the cost, one of the biggest
contributors to this are the pursue by the prosecutor of a death penalty conviction.
Possible solutions to reduce the cost of the death penalty might be to have death
row inmates in the same facilities as other prisoners, or at least reduce their
accommodations, and reduce the time it takes for the state to sentence someone to
death and carry out the execution.
In order to reduce the cost of running of facilities holding inmates sentenced to
death, the state can take steps to make it so that inmates sentenced to death have
similar conditions to regular inmates.