The principal investigators for the North Carolina study were a Ph.D. (in economics) and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) with a Master's degree in the social sciences; assistance was provided by a recent Duke graduate holding a B.B.A. (business administration). The Duke -North Carolina study used charge, trial, conviction and appeals data from 1991 -1992; death penalty data used ranges from the early 1980s through 1992. Funds for the study came from a grant from the State Justice Institute to the North

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... rolina Administrative Office of the Courts. The Duke study (which hereinafter will be referred to as the "North Carolina" study) was conducted roughly a decade before the other two analyses that will be evaluated. Its age does not make comparisons with the later studies impossible or invalid, but differences in the legal environments for Duke and the other two studies do require an awareness of how time has influenced study inputs and outcomes. In Furman v. Georgia [408 US 238 (1972)] the US Supreme Court invalidated most state capital punishment laws and the sentences of those condemned to death under such laws. The Court some four years later articulated situations and processes by which states might resume executions in Gregg v. Georgia [428 US 153 (1976)], with the majority holding that when vetted appropriately through the Fourteenth Amendment the death penalty does not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishment. However, Furman and Gregg produced a series of "Balkanized" concurrences and dissents from a very divided Court, which provided grounds for further evolution of Supreme Court rulings and changes in state death penalty laws. Since legal analysis is not the purpose of this cost evaluation, it is sufficient to make two statements: First, there will be less biased case data (samples) available the more distant in time a study is from post-Gregg state death penalty laws; more cases and samples should, everything else being equal, produce better results. Second, as the Duke study notes, Furman and Gregg roiled due process requirements, invalidated death sentences and resulted in some invalidated sentences later retried. Accordingly, studies using data from "Furman +10" or so years are of questionable empirical value. The second and third studies chosen for the paper were produced by organizations affiliated with the state governments in Indiana (2002) and Tennessee (2004). The Indiana analysis was conducted by the Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission at the requests of the Indiana General Assembly (controlled by Republicans) and the Governor, a Democrat. This study weighed the costs associated with the charge, conviction and imposition of the death penalty against costs associated with LWOP. The 28 Commissioners were a diverse mixture of academics, attorneys, current and former judges (including appellate judges), prosecutors and public defenders, current and former state legislators, law enforcement (particularly sheriffs, which under Indiana law are responsible for protection of the courts and maintaining security during trials), a state corrections official and the current and former state Attorney General. The Commission had a staff of six (6) senior professional staff, a mixture of attorneys, analysts and statisticians. The Indiana study has six (6) major sections. Of these, § IV, "How the cost of a death penalty case compares to that of a case where the charge and conviction is life without parole," will be the section evaluated for this paper. The principal Commission staffer responsible for § IV was Mark Goodpaster, Senior Fiscal Analyst in the Office of Fiscal and Management Analysis, Legislative Services Agency. The final study assesses death penalty costs against LWOP in the state of Tennessee. The study was requested by the House Judiciary Committee and was performed by the Comptroller of the Treasury, John G. Morgan -a constitutional officer of the state appointed by the Tennessee House and Senate. The actual research was conducted by a division within the Comptroller of the Treasury, the Office of Research. Three analysts -one a senior legislative research analyst and two associates -conducted the research. It appears that a total of eight (8) individuals, including three administrative/clerical employees, worked on the search and analysis in various stages of the analysis. Unlike the Indiana study, the Tennessee study has one central objective, cost analysis,