By Dr. Philip Hansten
It’s mind-boggling that Los Angeles DA Nathan Hochman, who campaigned saying, “I will be ready on Day 1 to remove politics from prosecutorial decisions,” is already playing politics by pandering to the ultra-conservative pro-death penalty minority in calling for a return to death sentencing.
California doesn’t have an execution protocol. California doesn’t have a gas chamber. California doesn’t have a death row. Even if a new governor reinstates the death penalty, we are still years away from seeing executions again, if ever. The only reasonable explanation for DA Hochman’s announcement is that he lacks a basic understanding of the death penalty, a disturbing conclusion given his position as a DA.
Does Mr. Hochman understand… that at least 200 people have been exonerated and released from death row for reasons of innocence in the US? In California, six individuals have been found innocent and released from San Quentin’s death row, the most recent last July, when Larry Roberts’ conviction and death sentence for killing a corrections officer in 1983 were overturned. Roberts, now 71, served 41 years for a crime he didn’t commit.
This means for every nine people executed, one person on death row has been exonerated. And the 200 figure is misleadingly low, because it does not include innocent people who 1) died on death row of natural causes, 2) were executed, and 3) remain on death row. Does Mr. Hochman think that he is somehow immune from the human fallibility that pervades all human activities, including the criminal legal system?
Does Mr. Hochman understand… the evidence (going back 150 years) is clear— that there is no evidence that having the death penalty reduces the homicide rate compared to life in prison? As such, the death penalty serves no penological purpose. As Nobel Laureate Albert Camus said, “Let us call it by the name which, for lack of any other nobility, will at least give the nobility of truth, and let us recognize it for what it essentially is: a revenge. [This] is an emotion, and a particularly violent one, not a principle.”
Does Mr. Hochman understand… that the death penalty is vastly more expensive than life in prison, a burden borne by California taxpayers? The California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code’s 2021 report found that “a death penalty trial adds between $500,000 and $1.2 million to the costs of a murder trial for a number of reasons, which have not decreased since the passage of Proposition 66.”
Moreover, in their 2011 Law Review article, Judge Arthur Alarcon & Paula Mitchell found that “Since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions.” They later estimated that “Californians will spend an additional $5 billion to $7 billion over the cost of LWOP to fund the broken system between now and 2050.” How is justice served by spending billions of dollars on capital trials that, even if successfully prosecuted, mean a life sentence in California?
Does Mr. Hochman understand… that about 68% of the men and 66% of the women sentenced to death in California are people of color, while only 6% of California’s population, men and women combined, is Black? California’s top five death sentencing counties include Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Los Angeles, and Kern. How is justice served by pledging to continue a racist, geographically-biased, unjust system?
Does Mr. Hochman understand… that the death penalty is egregiously arbitrary, based on over a dozen variables, not only race and geography (as mentioned above) but also the resources of the defendant? There are no wealthy people on death row anywhere in the country. Indeed, people in even the top 25% of income virtually never end up on death row because they can hire excellent lawyers and experts to defend them. As former Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer said, “The death penalty is capricious, random, and arbitrary, and getting executed is the equivalent of being struck by lightning.”
Does Mr. Hochman understand… that the death penalty is horrifically cruel, not just to the accused, but to other people involved in the process? There are increasing reports of prison staff who participate in executions having psychological problems such as insomnia, nightmares, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, personality changes, and substance abuse. Does Mr. Hochman care about this? Perhaps to save prison staff from this trauma, Mr. Hochman should volunteer to personally kill the condemned, instead of being a bureaucrat coordinating the killing while sitting behind a desk.
Finally, virtually all developed countries have given up the death penalty. Our fellow travelers at this point include Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Yet Mr. Hochman is keeping alive a process that is, in the words of Albert Camus, “a revolting butchery; an outrage inflicted on the person and body of man.”
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DPF board member Dr. Philip Hansten is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and the author of Death Penalty Bulls***t.
