9 Investigates: Death row costing millions, but no one put to death

RALEIGH, N.C. — The warden of Central Prison in Raleigh showed Channel 9’s Dave Faherty into the area where dozens of people have been put to death.

He showed the gurney that they use to restrain the inmates and the death chamber where people can view the execution from an adjacent room.

The executions stopped in August 2006.

That's because of court challenges alleging lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

• PRESS PLAY: Dave Faherty behind the scenes in Central Prison

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High-profile capital murder trials haven't stopped.

For instance, the 2008 case of Lisa Greene cost taxpayers $750,000 in defense costs. The Cabarrus County mother was accused of murdering her children and setting her home on fire.

“The lawyers who are doing it certainly are not getting rich. I can promise you,” attorney Lisa Dubs said.

Dubs was not only Greene's court-appointed attorney, she also represented a dozen other capital murder defendants.

She lost only once.

She said all of that money goes to run the public defender's office and to pay for expert witnesses.

Every person tried for capital murder is appointed two lawyers who make $85 an hour. She said many people mistakenly believe it's less expensive to put someone to death.

Read more about capital cases in North Carolina:

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“Study after study has shown that that's not the case. It is more expensive to try a case capitally and execute someone than it is to house them for the rest of their life without the possibility of parole,” Dubs said.

"On down here. Straight down this path,” daughter Chardae Wilson said.

Wilson lives feet away from where her father was shot and killed 24 years ago in Hickory. Two men were convicted of his murder and another murder and have been on death row since 1993.

Wilson was just one when her father died. She favors capital punishment.

"They took my daddy out of this world. They snatched him out of my life at a young age. I don't remember what he looks like or nothing. I truly believe the same should happen to them," Chardae Wilson said.

Prosecutors said the decision on which cases should be capital is difficult.

They cost on average four times as much as other murder cases and the state spends more than $10 million each year to defend them.
 
In Catawba County, nearly $50,000 has been spent on Sharman Odom even though he's only been to court once since his arrest for the murder and sexual assault of Maggie Daniels last summer.

District attorney David Learner has that case along with two others in his district. He strongly supports the death penalty but says it's hard to carry out, because of the appeals process.

"These cases are hard to try the first time. They are extraordinarily difficult years later into the appeals process to try a second time,” Learner said.

Appeals have allowed some to sit on death row for decades.

Wilson said she is willing to wait hoping the men that kept her from having a father will be executed.

"I want people to feel what I feel. I want their family to feel what I feel. It is hard growing up without a daddy,” Wilson said.

Attorneys say beyond the cost it's hard to find a jury willing to make the decision for death.

"People want to be a lot more sure. Anybody who pays attention to the news knows that there are people on death row and who were facing execution who were in fact innocent,” Dubs said.

Read more 9 Investigates:

• July 7: No tickets for smoking ban violations
• July 6:  Scammers try to pull IRS con on Action 9's Jason Stoogenke
• July 2: New tool helps show difficult crime scenes to jurors

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