Back in March, New Mexico abolished the death penalty.  The words that Gov. Richardson used then still resonate:

“I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime,” Richardson said. “If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong.” (NM Independent 3/18/09)

And ultimately, that is the question with the death penalty. Do we trust our criminal justice system enough to give it the ability to kill? Is it really worth it to kill an innocent man or two for the retribution against those who are guilty?

These are, of course, moral decisions.  The irony of it is that many of those are so concerned with a “culture of life” are those who are the biggest supporters of the death penalty.  I suppose it is easier if you see the issue as black and white. Good and evil.  These are just bad people we are putting to death.  But all too frequently, they are innoncent people. For example, see the Texas case of Todd Willingham profiled recently in the New Yorker and on Nightline. Just watch this video, and tell me whether you would trust this prosecutor (now judge) to be involved in such a decision.

What good does an apology do to a man you have now killed?

In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire. He said that Vasquez’s approach seemed to deny “rational reasoning” and was more “characteristic of mystics or psychics.” What’s more, Beyler determined that the investigation violated, as he put it to me, “not only the standards of today but even of the time period.” The commission is reviewing his findings, and plans to release its own report next year. Some legal scholars believe that the commission may narrowly assess the reliability of the scientific evidence. There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person.” ([New Yorker 9/17/09 In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire. He said that Vasquez’s approach seemed to deny “rational reasoning” and was more “characteristic of mystics or psychics.” What’s more, Beyler determined that the investigation violated, as he put it to me, “not only the standards of today but even of the time period.” The commission is reviewing his findings, and plans to release its own report next year. Some legal scholars believe that the commission may narrowly assess the reliability of the scientific evidence. There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person.”])

Beyond the risk of executing an innocent person, there is also the fact that the death penalty does not actually reduce the rate of murders in the jurisdictions that have them.  Since 1990, the murder rate has been consistently lower in states that do not have the death penalty.  In this decade, it’s hovering over 40% percent lower.  Violence begets only more violence, not peace.  

Once you tear away the deterrence rationale, the death penalty is exposed as merely an act of retribution. An act of violence that has no place in modern society.

The argument against the death penalty extends beyond the sheer morals of it.  But California has had a moratorium on the death penalty process for years, you say? Well, that is absolutely correct. But, still the process of sentencing people to death continues. And it will not be so long until we once again see executions. It is only a matter of time. And as we wait, we spend money that could be going to educating at-risk youth, or providing educational training, or even something as silly as higher education. We are spending money on the death penalty almost in an effort to spite ourselves, and we are succeeding in cutting off our nose.

The argument goes, like everything in California, back to the budget.  Former Attorney General, and LA District Attorney, also more recently served  on the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. He came away from the experience more convinced than ever that the death penalty must go. And, he said so in the LA Times in June, citing the budget crisis:

According to the final report of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which I chaired from 2006 to 2008, the cost of a murder trial goes up by about half a million dollars if prosecutors seek the death penalty. Confinement on death row (with all the attendant security requirements) adds $90,000 per inmate per year to the normal cost of incarceration. Appeals and habeas corpus proceedings add tens of thousands more. In all, it costs $125 million a year more to prosecute and defend death penalty cases and to keep inmates on death row than it would simply to put all those people in prison for life without parole.

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It’s time to convert the sentences of those now on death row to life without parole. Doing so would incapacitate some of the worst of the worst for their natural lives, and at the same time ensure that a person wrongfully convicted will not be executed. And it would save $125 million each year.

A courageous governor facing an unprecedented budget crisis would take this step and use the taxpayer money saved to preserve some of the vital services now on the chopping block. (LA Times 9/30/09)

Every year, we spend money that we could be using to actually prevent crimes on the death penalty, with nothing to actually show for it. How much longer before we come to our senses and simply end the death penalty?