老澳门开奖结果

Most of the country seems to be getting it: The death penalty is expensive and risky. The expense to execute a prisoner is staggering: in California, the (PDF) compared to housing in other high security prisons, adding up to more than $63 million each year. A shift from death sentences to permanent imprisonment means significant savings and eliminates the risk of executing the innocent. That鈥檚 why a growing number of states are choosing permanent imprisonment over the death penalty. In fact, in 2009, the number of new death sentences nationwide (PDF) since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Why, then, is California going in the wrong direction? The Golden State sent more people to death row last year than it did in the prior seven years. At the end of 2009, California鈥檚 death row was by far the largest and most costly in the United States.

The 老澳门开奖结果鈥檚 new report, (PDF), shows, in fact, the majority of California counties are getting it right: most of California鈥檚 58 counties have effectively replaced the death penalty with permanent imprisonment. Pursuit of the death penalty in California is limited to just a few 鈥渒iller counties.鈥� Only three 鈥� Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside 鈥� accounted for 83 percent of all death sentences in 2009. The strange reality is fewer and fewer California counties are sending more and more people to death row.

Most shocking is . With 13 death sentences, Los Angeles was by far the leading death penalty county in the nation last year. L.A. sentenced more people to death in 2009 than the entire . Meanwhile, Harris County, Texas, long the death penalty capital of the country, had zero death sentences last year.

Even more disturbing, the new faces on death row are than before. Latinos comprised a staggering 50 percent of new death sentences in California in 2007, 38 percent in 2008, and 31 percent in 2009. In 2000, Latinos were only 19 percent of the death row population, even when Latinos comprised 33 percent of the people living in California. We don鈥檛 know what鈥檚 causing the increase in Latinos being sentenced to death 鈥� the state doesn鈥檛 keep the data needed to answer that question. Given that murder rates are down across all communities in California, particularly in Los Angeles, the increase in Latinos sent to death row raises serious concerns.

So let鈥檚 review:

• The rest of the country has caught on that the death penalty is too expensive and risky.
• California 鈥� especially Los Angeles and a couple other counties 鈥� continues to waste resources that we don鈥檛 have on a death penalty system that doesn鈥檛 work.
• In the process, more and more Latinos are being sent to California鈥檚 death row, and we don鈥檛 know why.

As the death row population grows, so do the exorbitant costs of California鈥檚 death penalty system. But the money needed to fund the system just isn鈥檛 there. In fact, some local officials have taken to cutting costs by denying funding to defense attorneys, even though two out of three death sentences in California are reversed because of ineffective counsel at trial. Of the 700 people now on death row in California, 40 percent lack an attorney needed to handle their state appeal or federal appeals. for an attorney. Meanwhile, memories fade, , and the risk that an innocent person will be executed grows.

California is on track to spend $1 billion on the death penalty in the next five years. For all the money we spend on the death penalty in California, only 1 out of 100 people sentenced to death has actually been executed during the last 30 years. ?

It鈥檚 time for California to get with the program. California has a better alternative: permanent imprisonment. Every guilty person sentenced to permanent imprisonment has died in prison or will die in prison. It allows us to punish serious offenders while saving the state $1 billion over five years. These funds could be shifted to local police who now lack the resources needed to solve murders, or to our beleaguered education system. It鈥檚 time for California to move forward: the death penalty is a mistake we can鈥檛 afford to keep making.

To find out how many people your county has sent to death row, view our of California death sentences.

(Cross-posted to and the .)