California chief justice urges reevaluating death penalty

San Quentin's brand new
execution chamber

Reporting from San Francisco— Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who heads the state's judicial branch and its highest court, said in an interview that the death penalty is no longer effective in California and suggested she would welcome a public debate on its merits and costs.

During an interview in her chambers, as she prepared to close up shop for the holidays, the Republican appointee and former prosecutor made her first public statements about capital punishment a year after she took the helm of the state's judiciary and at a time when petitions are being gathered for an initiative to abolish the death penalty.

"I don't think it is working," said Cantil-Sakauye, elevated from the Court of Appeal in Sacramento to the California Supreme Court by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "It's not effective. We know that."

California's death penalty requires "structural change, and we don't have the money to create the kind of change that is needed," she said. "Everyone is laboring under a staggering load."

In response to a question, she said she supported capital punishment "only in the sense I apply the law and I believe the system is fair.... In that sense, yes."

But the chief justice quickly reframed the question.

"I don't know if the question is whether you believe in it anymore. I think the greater question is its effectiveness and given the choices we face in California, should we have a merit-based discussion on its effectiveness and costs?"

Click here to read the full article

Source: Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2011

Related articles:

Death Penalty News: California: Repeal of death penalty could save ...

Oct 11, 2011

Loyola Law School professor Paula Mitchell, co-author of a recent study on the cost of California's death penalty, said the analyst's office report "severely underestimated" costs to taxpayers. Her study, written with U.S. 9th ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: California: Death penalty foes launch initiative ...

Oct 27, 2011

"You have to work with death row inmates to understand all the costs that are associated with them," said Woodford, former head of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and now executive director of . ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: Time to abolish California's expensive ...

Jun 27, 2011

WHEN A GOVERNMENT policy for decades has failed to accomplish its purpose and costs far more than an effective alternative, one would think a change would come easily. But that is hardly the case regarding California's ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: Costs for New California Death Row Soar to ...

Jun 16, 2008

“They simply want to build a massive monolith to house all our condemned inmates on the most expensive piece of real estate in Northern California.” Assemblyman Juan Arambula called the costs "alarming." ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Comments

Israel builds execution chamber for Palestinians convicted of murder

In March, the Knesset approved legislation that calls for the execution of Palestinians convicted by a military court of killing Israelis Israeli authorities are preparing a prison wing—replete with an execution chamber—designated specifically for Palestinian prisoners convicted of murder, Israel’s i24NEWS channel reported Tuesday. The move comes after the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) approved legislation in March that calls for the execution of Palestinian prisoners convicted by a military court of murdering Israelis.

Florida executes William Frances Silvia

Florida executed its 13th death row prisoner of the year Tuesday evening amid the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty championed by Governor Ron DeSantis. William Frances Silvia, 61, who was convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and injuring his mother-in-law in 2006, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving the lethal three-drug injection at Florida State Prison. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up. He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution while a priest sat at his feet and prayed.

Spared execution eight times, oldest inmate in US dies at 101 after 76 years behind bars

Francis Clifford Smith was given his last meal eight times. But after being spared execution each time, he went on to be regarded as the longest-serving prisoner in the US before dying in June at 101 years old. Convicted of murder in 1950 when he was 25, he always maintained his innocence, those who knew him told the BBC. Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut's Department of Correction, recounted how Smith used to feed the birds while in Osborn Prison, earning him the nickname The Birdman of Osborn.

Cartoons about Capital Punishment

More cartoons about capital punishment HERE

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Alabama is trying a death penalty bait-and-switch

For a decade, Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lee has been clear that he does not want to be executed by lethal injection . But that is what awaits him on September 17 . He faces that prospect because the state has been enjoined from using nitrogen hypoxia , the alternative execution method he preferred, to put him to death. Having failed to show that its nitrogen hypoxia protocol is constitutionally acceptable, Alabama wants a do-over to force Lee to die by lethal injection as a result of its own failure. It should not get one. Alabama should only be able to put Lee to death if it can fix nitrogen hypoxia’s constitutional defects.

Alabama executes Jeremy Williams

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Tennessee executes Darrell Hines

The state has spent millions of dollars over decades to execute a seriously ill man who was already incarcerated. The state of Tennessee executed death row inmate Darrell Hines Thursday morning, according to an advocacy group. No formal announcement of the execution has been issued by state leaders yet. The execution was slated for 10 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [DPN update] Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT. His last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea.

The 'Black Widow' shakes Iran: 10 death sentences for a serial killer who killed 12 men

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages. The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog