Death Penalty?

In this editorial, the author discusses the high prices of putting people through trials and being put on death row. On the New York Times Website, he states facts and firugres that show just how expensive the death penalty acutally is.
The intended audience for this subject would be the taxpayers in each state that abides by the law of death penalty. He points out exact figures and shows the public that not only is it immoral, it's costly with hardly any effects.
The editor states his arguement by saying, "states waste millions of dollars on winning death penalty verdicts, which require an expensive second trial, new witnesses and long jury selections." He goes on to explain just how much each state pays for keeping inmates on death row. These examples include Florida spending $51 million, North Carolina with $2.16 million per execution, and between 1978 and 1999 Maryland has spent $186 million for five executions. He claims that the economy doesn't need to have to pay for the death row costs when we are already in a debt crisis.
I agree with the Editor of the New York Times. We ares spending so much money when we need to spend it on others much needed things. Obviously the death penalty is not scaring people because there are more and more accounts of murder, increasing every day. This is definitely a debatable topic. But, in order to make an educated decison, there has to be a lot of research and evidence done. This article made me open my eyes to a new opinion, because I have always been on the side that says, "If you kill someone, you should be killed." But, in this economic recession, we don't really have millions of dollars to spare. Instead of putting inmates on death row, we should just place them all in a prison with no parole. This would be a cost effective approach that still has the morals of the initial purpose of the death penalty.