Eddie Ray Routh Found Guilty in 'American Sniper' Murder Trial

[Squeeze]

A lot of people here are complaining about having to "pay" a lot of money for this scumbag to rot in prison for the rest of his life. Many do not know that it actually costs more to put someone to death via death penalty in the U.S. than to give them life in prison. Something I picked up during my college days from a great law professor. The whole thing is, as soon as someone has been handed the death penalty, the appeal process starts. Every phone call, fax, correspondence exchanged, attorney(s) & judges time to review every legal document or assembly costs $$$ and they get paid well for all of that. Over the course of 20+ years those bills add up to a metric shit ton of money. For example; median cost for a death penalty case is $1.26 million. Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration with a median cost $740,000. Just some food for thought.

Regardless of cost I would've like to have seen Routh get put to death. The fact he's stealing oxygen from a perfectly hard-working tree is just wrong.

[MarkUSMC88]

. The whole thing is, as soon as someone has been handed the death penalty, the appeal process starts. Every phone call, fax, correspondence exchanged, attorney(s) & judges time to review every legal document or assembly costs $$$ and they get paid well for all of that.

Actually, most capital defense lawyers I've known work for the state, and they don't get paid well at all. Decent salary, but not what most would expect a lawyer would get. Same with capital appeals lawyers. Most capital cases don't involve people with lots of extra money sitting around to pay a private lawyer. That's why most capital cases are defended by the public defender's office and appealed by the public defender's appeal division. No one is getting rich from these cases.