Former LA District Attorney Gil Garcetti writes the OpEd, "Death penalty cases not a smart use of limited funds," for today's LA Daily News.
I served 32 years in the District Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.
I've been gone for nearly 11 years. In those accumulated 43 years, only two people sent to Death Row from an L.A. court have been executed, despite decades of agony for the families of murder victims and hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to taxpayers.
I have concluded that the death penalty law should be replaced with life imprisonment without the possibly of parole. Why? Because the death penalty serves no useful purpose. It is not a deterrent. It is horrendously expensive, and we cannot afford it.
There also are too many instances, nationwide, where people have been on Death Row until new evidence determined their total innocence. I would not be shocked if one or more of the 720 prisoners on Death Row in California were innocent of the crime for which he or she awaits execution.
Even proponents of the death penalty agree that the current system brings no finality or closure to the family and friends of the murdered victim and that it is outrageously expensive. They argue that it can all be done faster or for less money. They don't fully understand California's laws or justice system.
David Love, the newly-named Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a national organization of death row exonerees, writes, "The Death Penalty and #OccupyWallStreet," at Huffington Post.
Recently I attended the 12th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty in Austin, Texas. Participants included death penalty abolitionists, and members of Witness to Innocence -- over two dozen freed death row prisoners who spent years in prison, and once faced certain execution for crimes they did not commit. The day's events included a walk past the governor's mansion, and a rally on the Capitol steps.
One thing that struck me about the event in Austin was the presence of Occupy Austin protestors who were present to speak and lend their support. Clearly, they get it. They understand the link between the struggle for economic justice and the fight to end the death penalty in America. Perhaps you don't. Allow me to explain.
And:
America's economic and justice systems thrive on winners and losers, and someone is made to pay in the end. America's government has been sold to the highest bidder in the form of concentrated and unchecked corporate power. In the eyes of many, the political system is working for the few and against the vast majority of everyday people. Unlimited campaign finance is a scourge upon the land, operating as a legalized bribery scheme for the rich and famous. And the death penalty is part of a kangaroo court system in which poor and working class people become scapegoats for society's ills. These scapegoats are utilized to help deflect attention from the nation's problems, as we are all promised that their imprisonment and/or execution will make our problems disappear.
For years, the public had been sold on broken institutions that breed inequality, insensitivity and injustice. But there is ample proof that the people are no longer buying it. And the death machine -- not unlike American-style capitalism with its socialized risk and privatized gain -- is so inherently flawed that tweaking around the edges simply will not do. Fundamentally broken, it must be scrapped and replaced. What is needed is what Dr. King called a radical revolution of values, so that this nation emphasizes human rights over property rights, and upholds people over money.
Now that is why the death penalty abolition movement has so much in common with the Occupy Wall Street folks. Both know the fix is in.
Earlier coverage of California cost issues begins at the link.
Comments