Warehousing a murderer for the rest of his or her life is expensive, too, but a Duke University study found that North Carolina is paying $2.16 million more to execute a man than cage him for life; Florida would save $51 million a year by putting down its needle; and even hang-'em-high Texas, which has already executed 14 people in 2009, spends about three times more executing inmates than keeping them until age takes them, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News.

A similar study for possible savings in Utah may never be compiled, Hart said, because capital punishments make for such good political traction here.

"Politicians get a lot of mileage out of them," Hart said matter-of-factly.

But if Utah did compile one, it may include a few common numbers, which the Deseret News ultimately acquired through the Government Records Access and Management Act.

A 2006 report by the state Department of Corrections said Utah paid more than $45,000 in 1,580 man hours for the final two months of Parsons' life. A 14-member team met weekly, hired executioners and rehearsed every last step. But that was just the actual execution cost.

The execution summary also noted that each death-row inmate costs 15 percent to 25 percent more to house than "average" inmates. But Utah State Prison spokeswoman Angie Welling told the Deseret News last week there is no difference between housing the two types of inmates — even though death-row inmates are housed in a maximum-security unit.

"It's just the roof over their head with the same security," Welling said. "They all cost $29,000 (annually)."

However, according to the Department of Corrections report, "it is common knowledge that to try, house and execute an offender costs as much as three times what it costs to house an offender for an average life term."

So if the average murderer, age 29, sits in prison for life at presumed $29,000-a-year rate until the average age of 76, he will have cost taxpayers about $3.24 million, compounded with a 3 percent inflation rate.

But the math quickly gets fuzzy, even admittedly for attorneys Brunker and Hart, when one attempts to tally up the varying expenses charged while waging a 10- to 20-year war in state and federal courts.

Contributing: Sara Israelsen-Hartley. E-MAIL: jhancock@desnews.com