Cost of the Death Penalty

I am always amazed by how few people realise how expensive the Death Penalty really is. Or at least from evidence how expensive it has proved to be in America. I mention this because there was the usual 'Should life mean life?' debate on the bbc website the other day. As per usual, the blood thirsty comments calling for the death penalty came rolling in. I happened to mention the fact that it is believed that the Death Penalty actually costs more money than imprisoning somebody for the rest of their life. This information can be easily discovered on google by searching for 'The cost of the death penalty'. And there we were all thinking it was just the cost of a piece of rope.