Whenever the state puts to death someone in a state sanctioned
execution, the bell tolls for each one of us.
Dear Editor,
Whenever the state puts to death someone in a state sanctioned execution, the bell tolls for each one of us. We now know that one of seven people who are executed in this country are innocent. Whatever your moral compunctions are about an eye for an eye, does the continuance of the death penalty justify these terrible murders of innocent people?
Facts to consider: There are now 714 people on death row in California. Over 50% of these are people of color (black and Latino). The chances that a white person will get the death penalty for a similar crime is much lower. Of these 714 inmates, it is approximately a 20 year process costing millions of dollars because of our constitutional rights to bring these inmates to a final decision (retrial, pardon or death). It is much less costly to imprison those who commit murder in the first degree to life without parole. The death penalty is a terrible drain on the state’s resources.
Fifteen states have eliminated the death penalty with NO RISE IN CRIME RATES. In Illinois, 13 innocent people have been executed over the last 10 years (they were exonerated by DNA evidence or confessions of others after they had been executed.) This is the reason the Republican governor of Illinois suspended the death penalty in that state.
Forty-six percent of the murders in California go unsolved. The cost of the death penalty in California is robbing the state of police investigators that could be arresting some of the criminals who are roaming our streets after committing murder.
The argument for Deterrence after many investigative studies over the years has proven to be fallacious. There is no evidence that killing someone on death row will prevent other people from killing.
People whose loved ones have been murdered do not feel relief after the murderer has been killed. Many of these families have joined the anti-death penalty movement in the U.S. and California.
The present death penalty in California is costing the state 184 million dollars a year more than the alternative of life without parole.
On the 2012 ballot there will be an anti-death penalty initiative. There is a senate bill 490 now pending in the California legislature to replace the death penalty with life without possibility of parole. Consider the facts above, and then make up your own mind.
Natasha Wist, Hollister
