California Reconsiders Capital Punishment

As the state of California spends more time and money researching more humane methods for executing death row inmates, the voters of the state will consider once more whether to abolish the death penalty altogether. As inmates languish and die of natural causes before being forced under a fatal hypodermic needle, the taxpayers are reconsidering the worth of investing time and money in prosecution, appeals, and prison apparatus to prepare for state-sponsored executions which are increasingly delayed.

Despite the respectable research of certain political scientists, and in spite of the telling accounts of individuals who acknowledged the deterring power of the death penalty to restrain their vengeful passions, the death penalty has undergone one compleeing challenge after another. From the thirteen death row inmates exonerated on Illinois' death row during Governor George Ryan's tenure, to the growing number of miscarriages of justice reexamined and exonerated by DNA evidence, the fraught politics and emotional investigations of the death penalty argue for the abolition of the practice.

To those who view the unconscionable act of murder as deserving only the same in proper legal retaliation, opponents of capital punishment refer to the lengthy and costly procedures, all mandataed by federal due process, which indefinitely prolong the prosecution and enforcement of the death penalty in the state of California.

The Great Recession, which has depleted state coffers while exposing the financial ruin of the overextended state, has pushed the abolition of the death penalty to the forefront of the California initiative process once again. Because of the incalculable costs, because of the long, frustrating legal delays, because of the alarming number of falsely accused who have faced death unjustly, the death penalty must be abolished in the state of California.

Followed by the decriminalization of controlled substances, putting an end to capital punishment would save the state, the taxpayer, and the moral fiber of our courts from costly and pointless indictments, none of which have effected justice or the rule of law. The economic climate, which had so threatened the viability of the state, is compelling a proper reappraisal of the state, its expenditures, and its documented effects.