In the U.S. the state has never been an arbiter of life and death. A jury of peers decide that.
In a state where we struggle to house people, home prices are exploding through the roof, who bears the costs to hold those prisoners for the rest of their lives? to feed them, to provide them a habitable bed, cleaning supplies, medical health as they age and start to need increasingly more care?
> The decision to spare death row inmates is largely symbolic in a state that has not executed an inmate since 2006, though experts say it could save millions of dollars in court costs each year. Only 13 inmates have been executed since voters reinstated the death penalty in 1978.
Virtually all cases involving death penalty have a jury trial, higher stakes == higher priced lawyers, there are built-in automatic appeals, there are actually two separate trials for guilt and application of death penalty vs. one trial with a sentencing phase, etc.
That's a founding father of the USA, talking about imprisonment. When you extend that to state-sanctioned execution... capital punishment makes no sense as it cannot be undone.
In at least some US states, the jury decides guilt/innocence but the judge determines the sentences for guilty verdicts. So in those cases the jury of peers is certainly not being the arbiter of life and death.
The constitution puts no limits on the power of a jury to acquit someone and it's absolutely despicable that judges have tried to usurp that authority under that pretext of following the rule of law.
If we want to make it harder for juries to acquit someone, then that should be written in the law; not invented by judges.
and the costs to hold those prisoners for the rest of their lives? to feed them, to provide them a habitable bed, cleaning supplies, medical health as they age and start to need more care?
If I may make that assumption, what's your uneducated guess on how those costs compare?
What's the possibility that the costs of maintaining infra required for and performing the executions are just noise compared to those to fully house, keep healthy as inmates shiv and injure each other and maintain the life of an adult who will never repay it?
> after reading the article seems like a no-brainer, CA is not executing anyone anyway
voters vote on emotion than logic and math
The state is usually paying for the prosecution and defense as well as the court staff in these hearings.
Relative to California's law enforcement and judicial budgets required to investigate, arrest, try and convict them in the first place? Irrelevant noise. That's just a silly argument.
(There's also the whole moral thing about "we should kill people because it's too expensive to keep them alive", but even so, the financial thing just doesn't logic.)
[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Is_the_death_penalty_more...
Probably a good thing considering (what I perceive to be) a rise in political violence that seems to push for and/or celebrate summary executions with little to no due process.
Imagine using _just saving some money_ to justify the death of a person. What a country.
- provide housing, education and medical coverage to people who are trying their best to make a living
- support a person who has killed atleast one more person for reasons that a jury of 12 people found unreasonable
Money unfortunately is zero sum.
No, it's not. You don't get the right to audit where "your" dollars go. Where the government should better use EVERYBODY's money, sure. But when an USian says "I don't want MY tax dollars to be used in this", is usually because they'd rather apply a fast revenge against any criminal for any crime, not caring if the person is maybe innocent (and trusting their judgement magically will allow them to have perfect knowledge of culpability), or they just don't want those dollars they believe they have the right to audit go to something as, for instance, socialized health care, where "their" dollars accidentally could benefit someone with the wrong skin color.
The speed at which USians classify people they don't like in the "unworthy of human rights" category is truly frightening.
The US is also the only "first world" nation that still has the capital punishment.
Our justice system is flawed by bias and careerism (the same is true anywhere, and the US is no exception). The fact that innocent people sometimes exonerated for crimes years or decades later is reason enough to ban the death penalty forever, IMO. Every time an innocent person is put to death, that's horrible itself, but it also means the real offender is still out there somewhere. Even if it happens 1% of the time that's still dozens of people over the years.
I would rather let the worst criminals stay alive in prison if it means one innocent person isn't put to death so they can appeal their case.
This doesn't excuse the immorality of the death penalty.