Long Wait on California's Death Row

According to the L.A. Times, a recent report finds that California's death penalty process is "dysfunctional", with the average time on death row ranging from 20 to 25 years, versus the national average of 12 years.

The main report did not advocate abolishing the death penalty but did note that California could save more than $100 million a year if the state replaced the punishment with sentences of life in prison without possibility of parole. Death row prisoners cost more to confine, are granted more resources for appeals, have more expensive trials and usually die in prison anyway, the commission said.

The time from death sentence to execution in California is 20 to 25 years, compared with the national average of 12 years, the commission said. Thirty inmates have been on death row more than 25 years, 119 for more than 20 years and 240 for more than 15, according to the report. The state spends about $138 million a year on the death penalty and has executed 13 people over the last three decades, the commission said.

"The system's failures create cynicism and disrespect for the rule of law . . . weaken any possible deterrent benefits of capital punishment, increase the emotional trauma experienced by murder victims' families and delay the resolution of meritorious capital appeals," the commission concluded.

The commission learned of "no credible evidence" that the state had executed an innocent person but said the risk remained. Fourteen people convicted of murder in California from 1989 through 2003 were later exonerated. Six death row inmates who won new trials were acquitted or had their charges dismissed for lack of evidence.

It certainly sounds like the system's broken.