USA - Nebraska. Death penalty costs Nebraska about $14 million annually, study finds.

Death penalty costs Nebraska about $14 million annually, finds study commissioned by capital punishment foes. Ernie Goss completed the death penalty cost review for Retain a Just Nebraska, which is waging a campaign to keep the Nebraska Legislature's repeal of capital punishment. Omaha economist Ernie Goss said death penalty cases are more costly to prosecute and defend than murder cases where life without parole is the maximum sentence. More public money is spent on death penalty appeals and housing inmates on death row, said Goss, who based his analysis largely on cost studies conducted in other death penalty states. Although Goss is an economics professor at Creighton University, he also produces studies for paying clients. He completed the death penalty cost review for Retain a Just Nebraska, which is waging a campaign to keep the Nebraska Legislature's repeal of capital punishment. The repeal is on hold pending the outcome of a referendum that seeks to restore the death penalty. Voters will decide the issue during the Nov. 8 general election. The Legislature's repeal of the death penalty prompted supporters of capital punishment to collect signatures to put the referendum on the ballot. Gov. Pete Ricketts, who unsuccessfully vetoed the repeal, was a strong supporter of the petition drive. Goss calculated the state spent $533 million on "justice activities" in 2013. Without the death penalty, the cost would have been about $519 million, he wrote. Between 1973 and 2014, Nebraska saw 1,842 homicides and 33 death sentences but only 3 executions, Goss found. The state's last execution took place in 1997.