Jun 23rd, 2008
Posted by Natasha Minsker, Death Penalty Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California at 5:10pm	Capital Punishment

After 30 Years, California Examines its Dysfunctional Death Penalty

Originally posted on Daily Kos.

It's never too late.

After 30 years of executions, the state of California is finally conducting an exhaustive review of the death penalty system. While the report will not be released to the public for another few weeks, the troubling evidence they reviewed is already known.

Highlights include: extraordinarily high costs, an unacceptable backlog of capital cases, as well as racial, ethnic, and geographic disparities in sentencing—problems with the administration of the death penalty in California are in no short supply. The upcoming report by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ) will focus on whether it' possible to fix these problems, and if so, how much we will have to pay to implement the needed remedies. Bottom line, Californians will need to decide, is it worth the price?

In preparation for this report, due out June 30, the commission conducted hearings across the state, hearing testimony from more than 70 witnesses and reviewing thousands of pages of written submissions, all highlighting a myriad of problems with California' death penalty.

Expert testimony has raised the following concerns, among others:

• The death penalty process costs California an estimated $139 million a year.
• California has the largest death row in the country with 670 people currently sentenced to death.
• Increasing demands on the California judiciary mean less time to devote to the death penalty appeals process, which in turn leads to unacceptable delays in the administration of justice.
• Despite efforts on the part of the California Supreme Court, the extreme demands of death penalty-related cases continue to stress their capacity.
• Legally inappropriate factors, including race and geography, have an impact on who is sentenced to death.
• California has had between 79 and 170 people on death row without counsel in recent years.
• Family members of murder victims are dragged through years and years of appeals, sometimes even after they tell the district attorney that they don’t want the death penalty.

These and other problems led Chief Justice of the California' Supreme Court to tell the commission that California' death penalty is dysfunctional and, if nothing is done, will “collapse of its own weight.” The task for the commission is to decide, what can be done and at what cost?

We look forward to the commission' findings and encourage you to keep an eye out for this important assessment of the state of justice in California.

For further background on the death penalty in California see Death Penalty Focus, California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and the ACLU of Northern California.

Permalink |	Capital Punishment

1. J. GAY Says:
   Jun 24th, 2008 at 8:50pm

   After seventeen plus years of activism for the families of death row inmate's, who suffer the death penalty even though they are not the one's who committed a crime,I am convinced it is unfair to those in this position. A mother for example, loses face, employment and is disgraced for life over a death sentence. No one seems to care. Not only does the family of the victim suffers for years of appeals, so do the family of the person who will eventually be put to death. No study that I personally know of, includes the innocent family members of the men and woman on death row. They are the forgotten persons who much suffer for the rest of their lives over a penalty that wants to end the life of their family member, and make them wait year after year for that death.
   Marriage is my second issue with the California death penalty. I truly believe the people on death row should not be allowed to marry while on death sentence-ever. As a person who experienced this crazy "marriage not", allowed after much scrutiny, that never allows the marriage to be consummate-ever. That alone is cruel and inhumane to the inmate and the wife/or husband. The system allows the two to become man and wife, yet controls the very affection that naturally comes with marriage and love. The man must curtail his affections in an artificial way, and same with the legal wife. Yet, they are confined into a padlocked cage, never to be seated next to one another, never to link arm and arm for example. Marriages of this sort is only more mean spirited punishment to those who were allowed to "marry" each other by law. What a farce, what a ridiculous "ceremony" in the first place, and for what? So that the wife must now hide the fact of whom she married from society? No children can be conceived, no conjugal visitation only further cold restriction of care and affection, afforded anyone else getting married.
   The scenario condemns the marriage from day one. I have personally witnessed hundreds of marriages fall apart, women "adopt" an innocent child into the "marriage" only to have a few visits with a death row "daddy" in a months time, depending on where the mom lives in relationship to the prison of San Quentin. It is all a crime, to that child, to that woman, and only serves up more punishment in the long run to the inmate.
   And lastly, I have witnessed and personally experienced what a death row wife can go through as the wife of an inmate. We are marked for life, even after divorce, because no one is in favor of a death row relationship in our society. Other prisons in other countries,allow the inmate and wife to have "together time" but not America. So "wife" eventually tires of trying to hold up under tremendous pressures, under family scrutiny, under losses of living quarters, and employment, even though it is illegal, no one wants to defend the wife at all. The inmate may have attorneys of support, but the wife does not. Her inmate husband is in a very desperate situation and often dangerous ideas of escape, smuggling ideas and threats may also occur towards the wife in this situation.

   Society condemns the men and wives, mother's, father's, aunts,uncles,grandparents,and children of these men and woman on death row, to a utter life of hell and torture that no one understands and does not care about.
   I believe the death sentencing should end, the men and women be allowed to work and be incarcerated perhaps for life, or until they can be rehabilitated. As it stands now, the persons on death row are not even allowed to work, leaving far too many torturing hours to think about escape, harming others, growing meaner and more dangerous by the years behind bars with absolutely no hope. This is extreme and cruel punishment and is not curtailing murders in our state.
   thank you, J. Gay ex wife of inmate, innocent on death row Ca. for over 23 years/case over turned twice on the death penalty sentence due to innocent evidence, last judge committed suicide, after presiding over a very unfair trial, the judge was caught molesting his own daughter.

2. Don Ward Says:
   Sep 11th, 2008 at 1:56am

   Why don't I ever hear about the victim's rights?????? The ACLU is more like a cancer than a cure for ills. Capital punishment is not a punishment, it is a REMOVAL of scum from society period. Very sick of liberals; dreamers and 'goody-goodys all.

3. Steve R Says:
   Sep 18th, 2008 at 12:48pm

   I am from the UK, where death by hanging was abolished in 1970

   Just an observation but most of the sentences of death handed out in the UK were normally carried out in a coouple of months max. from conviction/appeal not several decades as in the US.

   I am oppposed to the death penalty but not purely because the punishment is cruel to the executee more that damage is done to the people expected by the state to administer and carry out the sentence.

   As H W Critchwell a hangman from London for 8 years remarked following the controversial execution of Ruth Ellis in 1955 (this execution also effectively sealed the fate of Capital Punishment in the UK):

   "At 9 O'Clock last wednesday morning, Ruth Ellis was hanged. Thats that. You extracted your pound of flesh, all was over and would soon be forgotten. HOW WRONG YOU ARE. That same morning there were at least 10 people waiting to witness and carry out the execution of Ruth Ellis. There was the Governor, the Padre, the Sheriff, the Hangman, the Death Watch etc. All would have been greatly relieved had a last reprieve been granted. No such miracle happened as Ruth Ellis 'hit the rope' These ten people, looking down the pit at the ghastly spectacle suspended from the rope received a severe shock to their systems. It is the living that suffered by this uncivilised practice. I write this in good faith. I have entered that pit and shamed myself many times. I am thoroughly ashamed. No medicine can help me; I still suffer"