Death Penalty

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice issued a 117-page report yesterday on the administration of the death penalty in California. They have agreed unanimously that capital punishment in California is broken and that implementing reforms will cost a fortune. Through four years of extensive research into those on death row, the crimes eligible for capital punishment, and the duration of time between convictions and executions, the Commission called for a major overhaul of the California Criminal Justice system. California currently has the largest death row in the nation, with 670 prisoners. However, since the reinstallation of the death penalty in 1976, California has only executed 13 people.

The commission's examination of the criminal justice system, wrongful convictions, and the quality of life on death row all reveal a process that is "dysfunctional" and severely flawed. The state's death penalty system is close to collapse, and many death row prisoners are effectively sentenced to life incarceration, though at death penalty prices, which are 10 times more expensive. As this report makes plain, the cost of the death penalty in California is staggering.  California without the death penalty would cost taxpayers just $11.5 million a year.  The current system costs more than 10 times as much - $137 million annually -  and reforming the death penalty as recommended would cost almost a quarter of a billion dollars a year.   And even reforming the system will not eliminate the risk that errors will lead to the execution of an innocent man.

Overhauling the system would likely bankrupt the already destitute state budget. Meanwhile, California has also been proposing to move their death row to San Quentin, and to build a new unit in the prison already there. Beginning estimates have already multiplied in size, with each prison cell costing an average of 800,000 dollars per inmate. California's current lethal injection gurney is housed in their former gas chamber.

Recent cost studies in other states have all shown that the death penalty is a money pit.  In Kansas a 2003 study showed that death penalty cases cost 70% more than non-death penalty case.  A 2004 Tennessee study showed that death penalty trials cost 48% more than non-death penalty trials.  And in Maryland earlier this year a study determined that death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases.

In California, as in other states, the death penalty takes up resources that could be used for more effective crime prevention measures and meaningful victims' services.  Education, drug treatment, mental health care, or more police on the streets are far better investments that can have a real impact on reducing crime.  Surely the people of California deserve more for their $100 or $200 million a year.   

Brian

DPAC