Take It From Two Judges: California’s Death Penalty Is Broken
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By Judge LaDoris H. Cordell (retired)
Santa Clara County Superior Court
On Wednesday and the day before, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye slammed California’s dysfunctional death penalty before the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board.
I couldn’t agree more.
Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye is the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. That makes her the current leader of our state justice system. So, people across the state sit up and take notice when she says the status quo on the death penalty is the "worst possible option" and that we must consider whether we are willing to “put our money where our will is.”
For nearly 19 years, I was a state court judge in Santa Clara County. I presided over criminal cases where I sentenced many convicted felons to life in prison. In 2001 I retired, in part, because California's broken and battered death penalty system is taking justice out of our criminal justice system.
As the Chief Justice noted, the death penalty is taking a terrible toll on our justice system. We have created a public safety gap. Forty-six percent of murders and 56 percent of rapes in California are unsolved. And they won't be solved as long as the dollars to hire more police are siphoned off to pay the $100,000 to house each of the 720 inmates on death row annually. Death row inmates are safer than we are.
The first time Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye spoke out, many people noted that she is a conservative Republican appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. She has written a ruling affirming a death sentence and joined other justices' decisions upholding capital sentences.
But the Chief Justice took pains to explain that her argument with the death penalty is not personal – or even political. She said: “I understand it's an emotional issue. And I don't take that away. But I do think that we … having experience since 1978 ought to be able to try to have, among those of us who are involved, a merit-based discussion about cost-effective structure and change.”
Any serious conversation about the death penalty shows the numbers just don’t add up. The fact is that we have spent $4 billion since 1978 on the death penalty. A total of 13 people have been executed and more than 700 inmates remain on death row with executions on indefinite suspension.
And let’s not forget that the death penalty is unreliable. Across the country, 139 people have been freed from death row because they were found to be factually innocent. Three of those innocent were on California's death row.
For all these reason, I agree with the Chief Justice and urge California voters to support the SAFE California campaign to replace the death penalty with life without parole.
It’s time to save our precious public funds for for schools, libraries, community centers, police and fire departments. It is always the right time for justice.
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Judge LaDoris H. Cordell presided over the Santa Clara County Superior Court.