Federal Judge's Ruling of Death Penalty deals low blow to victim's families
A federal judge last week mistakenly ruled that California’s death penalty is unconstitutional. The ruling was not based on any wrongful convictions or denials of any convicted murders constitutional rights. The decision was solely on the decades long delays that currently exist between the time a criminal is convicted of first degree murder and the time they are executed.
Since the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld capital punishment as a sentence for the most cold-blooded heinous murderers in our society, clearly the death penalty is not the problem. It is the delays that have been allowed to occur in carrying out the death penalty in California that need to be repaired.
Defense attorneys and criminal rights activists who put the rights of vicious killers above the rights of murder victims have systematically used tricky stall tactics and legal maneuverings to create this cycle of endless delays. After creating these costly delays they then have turned around and argued that death penalty costs taxpayers too much money and should be abolished. They are wrong.
The solution is not to scrap the death penalty in California. The solution is to solve the problem that’s been created and make the death penalty work in a timely and cost effective manner as it does in most other states. Our criminal justice system must hold defense attorneys accountable for their legal antics and end this cycle of unnecessary continuances and delays.
The Attorney General and every District Attorney must ensure their prosecutors do their duty and contest frivolous legal maneuverings by defense attorneys. Judges must properly administer justice by refusing to allow these delay tactics by any attorney in their courtrooms and sanctioning those who abuse the system. Any of these elected officials that do not do so must be held accountable by the voters.
These simple reforms will improve the functioning of our court system, restore integrity to the appeal process for those facing the death penalty, save taxpayers millions of dollars, provide justice for the families of murder victims, and ensure that California has a death penalty in place that can serve as a strong deterrent to murder.
William Hutchinson
President
Palm Springs Police Officers' Association