Setting aside the more complicated moral and legal arguments yesterday, a group tasked with assessing the merits of the state's death penalty took up a less emotional assignment.

What does it cost a state to prosecute a death penalty case and put someone to death?

They're not easy questions. New Hampshire, which has spent more than $5.3 million on the two capital cases it litigated last year, has only begun to answer them.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., told the study panel the average cost for one execution is $30 million.

Dieter said his estimate contrasts the millions of dollars spent nationwide on dozens of capital cases against the small number of such cases that actually end in execution.

As an example, he cited Maryland, which spent $186 million over 20 years prosecuting death penalty cases. Of those, five ended in execution, putting each execution at $37 million, he said.

In another study, New York spent $170 million on capital cases over nine years and had no executions, he said. New Jersey spent $253 million on capital cases over 25 years without an execution, he said.

Both states have abolished the death penalty.

"I think one of the most common misperceptions is the notion that (the death penalty) saves money because the executed defendant doesn't have to be cared for at the state's expense," he said. "Sums like these are causing officials to rethink the wisdom of such expenditures."

After the state attorney general's office prosecuted two death penalty cases last year and won a death sentence in one and a life sentence in the other, the Legislature appointed a group to study the merits of New Hampshire's death penalty law.

The 20-member group is led by retired judge Walter Murphy and includes lawyers, law enforcement officials, legislators and two men whose fathers were murdered.

Members have about a year to consider several complex questions, including whether the death penalty deters crime, is used arbitrarily and covers the appropriate crimes.

Currently, murder for hire or during a rape, kidnapping or drug transaction are eligible. So is the murder of a police officer or judicial officer. The murder of children or multiple people is not eligible unless the crime meets the above criteria.

Committee members must also explore whether there are better alternatives to the death penalty and how much more the state spends on a capital case than a first-degree homicide case - where conviction means a life sentence.

It was the last question that was on yesterday's agenda.

Deputy Attorney General Orville "Bud" Fitch told the committee his office spent $1.6 million prosecuting Michael Addison for the murder of a Manchester police officer. Addison was sentenced to death.

The office spent $2.4 million prosecuting millionaire John "Jay" Brooks for hiring men to kidnap and kill a Derry man he suspected of theft. Fitch said that case cost more largely because of travel expenses; planning for the crime took place in Las Vegas.

Brooks was convicted of capital murder but given a life sentence by jurors. Both Brooks and Addison are appealing, a process that will continue to cost the state money and resources.

Brooks paid for his own lawyers. Addison, however, was represented by public defenders. That representation has cost the state more than $1.2 million, according to Nina Gardner, executive director of the state's Judicial Council.

Fitch could not estimate yesterday what a "typical" first-degree homicide case costs his office to prosecute, in part, he said, because there isn't a "typical case." But he's working on that figure.

Gardner said her office generally spends far less defending a first-degree case: $70,000 to $100,000.

John Safford, the Hillsborough County Superior Court clerk whose court handled the Addison trial, detailed the court's costs. He compared the Addison case against four recent first-degree homicide cases. (next page »)