Editorial: The death penalty is wrong, but it's still the law in California. 'We live in a democracy, and the people of California have said repeatedly that they want the death penalty.' (via latimesopinion)
The lethal injection facility is shown before being dismantled at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, Calif. on on March 13.
Not because the death penalty isn’t a morally bankrupt practice that needs to be done away with. It is, and it should be. But the governor would be going too far were he to reach across all sorts of lines of authority to tell locally elected officials to ignore a law that was duly passed by the Legislature and reaffirmed at the ballot by voters.as the state’s top executive, who, among other duties, oversees the attorney general, who in turn has authority over local district attorneys.
Newsom reasoned that the way the death penalty is being applied in this state — by an unjust and arbitrary system that disproportionately affects the poor and people of color — justified a moratorium. Notably, the reprieve he granted does not change sentences or convictions; it merely freezes the execution process. And it does not bind future governors.
We live in a democracy, and the people of California have said repeatedly that they want the death penalty. In fact, in 2016 they said they wanted to speed up the process by streamlining and rushing appeals, among other steps.
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