Executions in the United States have been carried out in deeply distressing ways in recent years. In January, Alabama executed Kenneth Smith by suffocating him using nitrogen gas, which isn’t even used to euthanize animals due to ethical concerns. This month, Missouri killed Brian Dorsey despite more than 70 correctional officers and members of the victim’s family advocating for clemency. Botched executions are routine, with individuals sometimes strapped to a gurney for hours.
By keeping the death penalty on the books, California continues to prop up this inhumane and ineffective system of punishment. A moratorium is not enough. It’s time for California to finally join the 23 states and 112 countries that have already eliminated the death penalty.
While Governor Gavin Newsom has overseen the dismantling of the state’s death chamber and the ongoing transfer of individuals off segregated death row units, California still has the largest population of individuals condemned to death in the country by far and many prosecutors in the state continue to pursue death sentences. This comes at a massive cost without any tangible public safety benefits.
Luckily, we’re again seeing momentum toward ending capital punishment in California.
Earlier this month, a group of civil rights and legal organizations filed a groundbreaking petition in the California Supreme Court arguing that “stark racial disparities infect California’s capital punishment system” and it is therefore unconstitutional under the state’s Equal Protection guarantees.
This week, the Prosecutors Alliance of California filed an amicus letter brief in the case urging the court to grant review. Prosecutors are obligated to seek justice, yet the crucial role many continue to play in upholding California’s death penalty system undercuts that commitment. There is no justice to be found in state-sponsored killings that are disproportionately applied to people of color.
Some prosecutors across California have already taken steps to end the death penalty. The petition to the Supreme Court came on the heels of Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen announcing he would resentence all 14 people from his county still on death row.
DA Rosen’s initiative follows efforts in San Francisco – where former District Attorney Chesa Boudin resentenced the last remaining individual from the city on death row in 2020 – and Los Angeles, where LA District Attorney George Gascón committed to not seek the death penalty upon assuming office and has already resentenced 29 condemned individuals. Sadly, DA Gascón’s opponent wants to bring the death penalty back and has not indicated that he will continue this important resentencing work.
But the courageous district attorneys moving forward on ending the death penalty recognize that we cannot seek justice through a costly capital punishment system that is rife with racial disparities, risks killing the innocent, and fails to deter crime.
As last week’s lawsuit lays out, racism is inseparable from the application of the death penalty. This has been true since early in California’s history. While lynching is most associated with the South, at least 350 people were lynched in California in the state’s early years, with many victims of Mexican descent. This legacy continues in modern capital punishment. A study from 1979 to 2018 found that – even after controlling for variables like felony murder, annual homicide rate, and county size and demographics – Black individuals were more than twice as likely and Hispanic individuals were 1.5 times more likely to receive a death sentence than white individuals. Defendants of all races are up to 8.8 times more likely to be condemned when at least one of the victims is white.
Death sentences have also been imposed on innocent individuals at alarming rates. Since 1973, at least 197 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated. Five of those were in California, all of them people of color.
This deeply flawed and ineffective system comes at a great financial cost. According to a 2021 report from the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, the death penalty costs taxpayers $150 million a year. Not only would these resources be better spent invested in crime prevention and support for crime victims, but the post-conviction review process for capital cases generally takes more than 30 years, and this prolonged process can be traumatizing to victims’ families.
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Yet, some are willing to ignore the injustices and hefty cost engrained in capital punishment because they believe it makes us safer. But research doesn’t back that up. There is no evidence that abolishing the death penalty leads to increases in crime. One study found that among 11 countries that abolished the death penalty, 10 experienced a decline in murder rates in the decade following abolition. And eliminating the death penalty and resentencing cases does not mean that people who remain a threat to public safety will be released; they simply need not be sentenced or put to death.
There is simply no justification for California to maintain capital punishment, and now is the time to act. While we wait for the state Supreme Court to decide the case, elected prosecutors can fulfill their obligation to justice by refusing to seek the death penalty and by resentencing past capital punishment cases.
The death penalty is a stain on our values as Californians, and we must finally stop perpetuating cycles of punishment and violence and instead invest in healing and rehabilitation.
Cristine Soto DeBerry is the Founder & Executive Director of the Prosecutors Alliance of California.