The Scoop

Melvin Claxton of the Nashville Tennessean has a three-part series on the price of murder in Tennessee, finding that “homicides cost state and local governments more than $110 million each year. The bill for Nashville alone, which has accounted for 17 percent of the state’s homicides over the past two decades, exceeds $18.7 million annually.” The paper’s analysis of police and judicial costs puts the average murder case at $626,648.