Costs of lengthy trials, repeated appeals and specialized housing add up, making it more difficult for states to pay for inmates who have been sentenced to death than to life in prison. As many states grapple with budget crises, lawmakers increasingly are scrutinizing the death penalty on fiscal, rather than philosophical, grounds.

Earlier this year, the New Mexico state Legislature passed a bill to abolish the death penalty and Maryland limited its application to cases in which prosecutors present DNA or biological evidence, a video of the crime or a confession.

Measures to abolish the penalty are pending in five other states, including Colorado, where the state House on Wednesday passed a bill to eliminate the death penalty and use some of the resulting savings to solve cold murder cases.

No such legislative effort is under way in Pennsylvania.

State Rep. Don Walko, D-North Side, chairman of the House judicial subcommittee on courts, said he would be open to asking the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing to study the death penalty's costs. But he said such a review would have to wait until after the commission finishes another study on mandatory minimum sentences, which is due in November.

Mr. Walko said he remains a supporter of the death penalty, but media reports about the costs "did pique my interest."

A study by The Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization, found that a death penalty case prosecuted in Maryland cost $1.9 million more than a homicide case resulting in life imprisonment.

The American Civil Liberties Union in Northern California estimated the figure at $1.1 million in that region. A study by the Kansas state Legislature found that trying a death penalty case, on average, costs $500,000 more than a similar case resulting in a life sentence in that state.

Gov. Ed Rendell, who on a visit to Pittsburgh last week said he would sign a death warrant "without a moment's thought" if accused cop-killer Richard Poplawski is convicted and sentenced to death, believes those costs are justified.

"A review of the costs does not adequately consider either the deterrent or punitive value of the death penalty," his spokesman, Chuck Ardo, wrote in an e-mail.

But Mr. Ardo added that the low number of executions in Pennsylvania -- just three since 1978 -- "is a concern when evaluating the deterrent value."