Reasons for against and disadvantages

- Can cost up to $3.2m

- Median cost of death penalty case is $1.26m whilst non-death penalty cases are $740,000

- 49% of the cost is spent on pre-trial and trial

- More pre-trial time needed to prepare and this can take up to a year.

- More experts need to be hired - twice as many attorneys for defence and persecution.

- Two trials need to be conducted: one for guilt and one for punishment

- The trial is longer - estimated to be 3-5 times longer than a typical murder trial

- Innocent people may be punished - with normal cases, they can be taken out of jail but with death penalties, they can't be taken back from the grave

- More expensive than life in prison