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Cut death – cut costs (Good News Week 16/3/09: Strange But True)

American politicians opposed to the death penalty are arguing that it should be abolished to cut costs. And some sort of gobbledygook about “human rights”, “valuing life”, blah blah blah.

American politicians opposed to the death penalty are arguing that it should be abolished to cut costs. Because what other argument could there be? / Well, can you come up with a better reason?

American politicians opposed to the death penalty are arguing that it should be abolished to cut costs. I didn’t realise rope was that expensive. / The rope crisis is really hitting home.

The costs are also quite high for the dead guy.

You can tell the economic crisis is hitting hard when the Yanks start valuing human life. / start to question the value of killing people.

Of course, another way to save on courtroom costs is to just lynch the bastards. / shoot first, ask questions later. Also known as the “Texan” technique.

Capital cases typically take longer, require more lawyers and costly expert witnesses, result in multiple appeals, and usually result in life sentences anyway. Surely the least a judge could give you for all that expense is a bit of zappy-zap?

Capital cases typically take longer, require more lawyers and costly expert witnesses, result in multiple appeals, and usually result in life sentences anyway. But it takes a financial crisis to make them even consider doing away with ‘em.

American politicians opposed to the death penalty are arguing that it should be abolished to cut costs. After all, there’s no way lawyers are going to accept less pay.

Opponents to repealing capital punishment say it will lead to more crime and greater costs to states down the road. And that they’ll have to go vigilante to get their death-cult thrills. / their morbid jollies. / their morbid titillation. / their morbid rocks off.

Opponents to repealing capital punishment say it will lead to more crime and greater costs to states down the road. And where are they going to go to watch people die?

An alternative cost-cutting measure is to replace capital punishment with lowercase punishment. Instead of an electric chair, you just stick your finger in the socket. / they have a cattle-prod.

Sure it costs more to try them. But you can recoup at least some of that by selling tickets.

It’s particularly expensive when later evidence exonerates the accused and you have to get them reanimated. / raised from the dead.

The death penalty ends up being so expensive because they have to employ more expensive lawyers and judges. So a cheap alternative to ditching the death penalty is to convict people by an SMS vote. “Just vote 1300-HANG!”

That’s the US for you – they’d rather do away with people than do away with executions.

But they don’t have to abolish the death penalty to save on costs! They can just employ the old Queensland cop technique – “ooh, they seem to have hanged themselves in their cell, what a shame.”

Cases involving the death penalty cost three times as much as cases that don’t. There’s the executioner, the complex machinery of death, the drycleaning – the list goes on.

But do we really want legal systems to be determined by budget constraints? Personally, I’d be happy to pay for the guilty to be launched into space to colonise new worlds, if that’s the best way to deliver justice. / colonise new worlds – you know, like how they founded Australia.

To further cut the costs of expensive trials, it’s proposed to do away with evidence altogether and just have the judge decide whether he likes the look of you. / decide by hunch. / decide the verdict by tossing a coin.

Executioners are upset by the proposition, and some have even offered to work for free, if it meant they could continue their sadistic power trip.

If they do outlaw the death sentence, all those unemployed executioners will have to look for other professions that can satiate their bloodthirsty hunger for taking peoples’ lives. I hear there are still lots of opportunities in Iraq… / Afghanistan…

If they do outlaw the death sentence, all those unemployed executioners will have to look for other professions that can satiate their bloodthirsty hunger for destroying peoples’ lives. I guess there’s always a career in giving out parking tickets. / the taxation office.

Personally, I’m opposed to the death penalty in all but the most extreme circumstances, like that guy who nicked my pen.

It’s not the morality of institutionalised murder that gets to them, it’s the cost. If killing people was free, they’d do nothing but!

It’s not the morality of institutionalised murder that gets to them, it’s the cost. If killing people was free, they’d do you for not using your green bag at the supermarket.

Plus you should see the carbon emissions from an electric chair. (Now that’s criminal!)

One of the greatest costs is the amount of electricity consumed by an electric chair. So they’re thinking of making them wind powered. / attaching little windmills.

Another way American politicians could cut costs is to stop death sentencing entire countries.

Another good way to save money is to get rid of those stupid bloody wigs. And how much is a bloody gavel? Just get a hammer, for god’s sake.

One suggestion to save money is that instead of expensive lethal injections, they just use Drano. / Ajax. Sure, it’s more painful for the criminal, but on the plus side, you can watch them twitch and writhe for hours!

Damn this economic crisis! It’s getting so you can’t fry people to death anymore!

One alternate cutback was cutting the cost of hangman’s rope by just asking the prisoners to choke themselves to death with their own hands.

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

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