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The cost of capital punishment in Pennsylvania

More than 180 inmates are on Pennsylvania’s death row, but no one has been executed in the commonwealth since 1999. According to the Death Penalty Informa...

More than 180 inmates are on Pennsylvania's death row, but no one has been executed in the commonwealth since 1999.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, more death row inmates in Pennsylvania have been exonerated than have been executed.

“The penalty that they sent down, three death sentences, I often wondered how they were going to kill me three times,” said Harold Wilson, who was sentenced to die in 1989 for the murders of three people in Philadelphia.

Wilson won a new trial years later after a training video surfaced in which prosecutor Jack McMahon instructs district attorneys on how to pick juries and the role of race. He points to "blacks from the low-income areas that are less likely to convict."

With new DNA evidence, it was discovered the blood at the scene didn't come from Wilson. A new jury found him not guilty nine years ago this month.

“Being incarcerated on Pennsylvania’s death row, it’s cruel, unusual,” said Wilson.

Cases like Wilson's have caused some state lawmakers to question the use of capital punishment in Pennsylvania.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, three inmates have died by lethal injection. Pennsylvania has the fourth largest death row in the country, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Twenty-eight inmates on Pennsylvania's death row were sentenced to die in the 1980s.

It costs the state about $35,000 a year to house an inmate sentenced to life in prison, compared to about $45,000 per year for an inmate on death row, according to the Pa. Department of Corrections.

Pa. Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille has written about the issue for the last few years. He's grown frustrated with federally funded public defenders who he believes are clogging the judicial system with appeals meant to prevent the death penalty from ever being carried out in Pennsylvania.

In the video player above, you'll find out more about why prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty despite the fact that the punishment is rarely carried out. You'll also see what state legislators have to say about the future of the death penalty. In 2011, they authorized a study on capital punishment, but it still isn't done.

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