> The cost of imprisoning someone for life is still less than putting them on death row. That's openly because execution foes have made it so expensive to exec

> The cost of imprisoning someone for life is still less than putting them on death row. That's openly because execution foes have made it so expensive to execute. Execution could be extremely cheap: lead the convict from the courtroom to the gallows, and be done with it. Imprisonment could be made to be even more expensive than execution, if there were strong-enough foes of life imprisonment (they could mandate every appeal and review that condemned men receive for those given life sentences). 'We shouldn't execute people, because it's more expensive to execute them (because we chose to make it more expensive),' is hardly a compelling argument.