A group of Alabama death row inmates is pushing an...

A group of Alabama death row inmates is pushing an unusual solution to the state's school-funding crisis: abolish the death penalty. "Capital punishment is cruel, barbaric and atrocious but you already know that," the group said in an open letter to students, parents and educators. "Now you're about to learn that it's not cost-effective." The inmate group - Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty - contends it is cheaper to keep inmates in prison for life than to carry out death sentences. The group said a death penalty case costs $2 million from arrest to execution, a process that can take years. But the state can keep an average inmate in jail for life for almost a fourth of that amount, they contend. With 180 prisoners on Death Row and 300 awaiting trial in capital cases, the state could save more than $700 million if it stopped pursuing the death penalty, the inmates said. A spokeswoman for Gov. Don Siegelman dismissed Project Hope's proposal. "Based on that logic, we could just open up all the prisons," Carrie Kurlander said. Death row inmates James Martin and Jeff Rieber said they're not proposing the release of death row inmates. "We are talking about giving them life without parole," they wrote. "We are just as safe if we lock them up forever as if we execute them".