MO SCR14

Directs the Oversight Division of the Committee on Legislative Research to study direct and indirect costs of death penalty cases filed on or after January 1, 1990, comparing at least 10 cases where death sentences were imposed to equal numbers of first-degree murder cases where death was not sought or where defendants received life without parole.

Study must include cost estimates for staff salaries, benefits, contracts, and operating expenses across the attorney general's office, department of corrections, prosecuting and circuit attorneys, public defender system, and state courts.

Cites that Missouri has executed 353 people since statehood with 47 currently on death row, and that the American Bar Association found the state in compliance with only 9 out of 95 death penalty best practices.

References evidence that death penalty cases cost 7 to 10 times more to defend than other murder cases in Missouri, and that Kansas found death penalty case costs exceeded other homicide cases by 70 percent.

Notes that a national survey ranked the death penalty as the least effective tool for reducing violent crime and 88 percent of criminologists found it does not curtail murder incidents.