That's the title of an editorial in today's Los Angeles Times. It's subtitled, "L.A. County led the U.S. in capital sentences in 2009. Prosecutors are being overzealous and inhumane."
Harris County, Texas, used to be known as the death penalty capital of the United States, the focus of national and global outrage over an outdated, costly and immoral form of criminal justice. But things have changed: Harris County now has a sentencing record that looks like Denmark's, and the hanging judges (or rather, prosecutors) seem to have relocated to liberal Los Angeles.
A recent report by the American Civil Liberties Union shows that Los Angeles County sent more people to death row last year than any other county in the U.S. -- and more than the entire state of Texas. The trend is particularly odd given that most of the rest of the country is headed in the opposite direction. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the number of death sentences nationwide last year was the lowest since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
A spokeswoman for the L.A. County District Attorney's Office says that 2009, when 13 felons were sentenced to death, was an anomaly because some capital cases took years to get to trial. Indeed, although the number of inmates sentenced to death annually was often in the double digits in the 1990s, there were only six in L.A. County in both 2008 and 2007. But that still doesn't fully explain why the office isn't following the lead of prosecutors in the rest of the U.S., who are pursuing fewer capital cases because in recent years some condemned inmates have been shown to be innocent and the economic costs of capital punishment are becoming harder to bear.
Los Angeles isn't the only killer county in California; death sentences were also up sharply in Orange and Riverside counties last year. The rest of the state, though, seems to be more in line with the national trend, according to the ACLU.
California hasn't killed an inmate in four years because of a legal battle over execution procedures, and its condemned population has soared above 700. That exceeds the capacity of San Quentin State Prison's death row, which is in need of a $395.5-million upgrade. Expenses related to the death penalty cost the state $137 million per year, according to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, at a time when Sacramento is trying to cope with a $20-billion budget deficit.
Speaking of Harris County, Houston ABC affiliate KTRK-TV posts, "Harris Co. not sending as many killers to death row." It's by Ted Oberg.
Harris County used to have a reputation as a fast track to death row. Just a few years ago, juries here sent an average of eight people to death row every year. It's down to two now and the last man convicted for killing a Houston police officer isn't one of them. He instead is serving life in prison.
And:
Since that verdict in May 2008, 99 people were convicted for new capital murders in Harris County, but not a single one of them has received the death penalty here.
Harris County used to send the most people to death row in Texas, but not anymore. In the last two years, Harris County juries sent just two killers to Texas' death row. The same number as two other counties, Cameron and El Paso, but less than both Tarrant (three) and Dallas counties (four).
"We had a terrible reputation," said Kathyrn Kase of the Texas Defenders Service where she defends people charged with capital murder.
A 2005 change in Texas law explains most of the change. Now juries can sentence a killer to life in prison without the chance of parole, and jurors can be certain convicted killers will die in prison without having to be executed.
"It means that someone is going to prison and stay there," said Kase.
However, there may be something else underway to explain the decrease - skepticism inside the jury box about the system and the potential for wrongful convictions.
"Jurors are more skeptical of evidence now. The Innocence Project's work and the crime lab scandals across the state have taken their toll," said Kase.
Before the change in law, Texas' death row got an average of 23 new inmates every year. Today that number is just 11. The yearly number of capital murders is virtually unchanged.
Earlier coverage of the ACLU of Northern California's report is here. More on Harris County, death sentences, and sentencing here, here, here, and in the sentencing index.
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