“Death is different,” Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is famously quoted as saying.

Death is too costly, adds Florida’s 18th Circuit Chief Judge Clayton Simmons.

When asked an open-ended question on what he would recommend no longer handling in Florida’s courts because of the budget crisis, Simmons answered: “One thing I would recommend is that we would get rid of the death penalty. It’s so darn expensive from the legal side to process a case and go through all pretrial and post-trial hearings you have to have.”

He adds the time it takes to death-qualify a jury and how more time is often spent on the penalty phase of a first-degree murder trial than the guilt phase. He speaks about the burden on ordinary citizens “ripped out of their lives and made to sit through terrible crimes and heart-wrenching decisions.”

“Assuming we do it right — and we never know because appeals take 10 or 15 years before a death warrant is issued. Even then, I was reading just today about someone fighting their death sentence for 28 years,” Simmons said.

“It’s getting worse. Look at Orange County, where the murders have quadrupled in the last couple of years. When the state attorney and the public defender are losing people, it’s an inordinate burden a death case puts on the system. It’s getting to the point that something has to give.”

Chief Judge Simmons said he and his judicial colleagues are sensitive to the different roles they and legislators play.

“We’re loath, in this budget area, to tell them how to do their jobs. We’re not inclined to go out and lobby the Legislature on social issues. That’s not our role in society. If asked, we’ll opine on it. I don’t think I’m saying anything radical when I say on a pure dollars and cents basis, the death penalty is not worth it.”

Sometimes, it can all go wrong, and the moral price is too high to pay, as well, Simmons said.

“When I was young, I never thought about it. When I became a judge and started thinking about it, I believe if we wrongfully execute one wrong person, that is just a black eye to society. I’m not sure we can afford that. I would sure hate to find out, post-mortem, that I had sentenced someone to death who was innocent.”

In terms of dollars and cents, just how much does the death penalty cost in Florida?

State Courts Administrator Lisa Goodner said, “We have never done a cost analysis on the death penalty in Florida.”

Florida Supreme Court Clerk Tom Hall recalled when then Chief Justice Charles Wells [2000-02] testified before a legislative committee considering whether to expand the court from seven justices to nine, he said death cases constituted about 50 percent of their workload, though only 12 percent of their caseloads. Currently, Hall said, about 40 percent of cases heard in oral arguments are death cases.

Pin a pricetag on the death penalty?

“You just can’t, because of all the variables,” said Roger Maas, executive director of the Legislature’s Commission on Capital Cases.

Maas did provide figures comparing the average daily costs of incarceration for death row inmates versus those serving life in prison: $68.64 versus $44.91.

The most recent data from the Death Penalty Information Center cites a January 4, 2000, story by the Palm Beach Post.

“Florida spends $51 million a year above and beyond what it would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison without parole,” the center’s Executive Director Richard Dieter testified in September at the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment.

“Based on 44 executions Florida had carried out from 1976 to 2000 that amounts to a cost of $24 million for each execution.”

Eighteenth Circuit Judge O.H.Eaton, considered an authority on the death penalty, said: “There’s really no way to estimate to the penny. You can’t do an audit on one of these cases.”

A Colorado study estimated $1.8 million per death case, yet infamous serial murderer Ted Bundy’s case cost Floridians $12 million, Eaton said.

“Do you include the cost of the jury and the salaries of lawyers and their overhead? We know death cases cost a lot of money, probably millions,” Eaton said. “We also know that a lot of prominent death penalty experts believe that the only way the death penalty will go away in the United States is when we can’t afford it.”