Death Penalty In California

The Death Penalty in California Since 1872, California used the death penalty for capitol offenses. Execution methods for the death penalty range from hangings, to gas chambers, and lethal injections. California abandoned hanging as a execution method on May 1st 1942. They began to rely solely on gas chambers and lethal injections. However, on February 18th, 1972, the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty a form of cruel and unusual punishment in accordance with he 8th Amendment. This caused for the resentence of 107 death row inmates. However, on August 11, 1977, legislature reinstated the death penalty only for crimes such as murder for financial gain, murder by a person previously convicted of murder, murder of multiple victims,
These people who carry out the death penalty, basically play dress up in God's shoes. Killing someone before their natural death completely thwarts Gods will (Bible). And we cannot say that the government plays god, because in reality one person seems as the alpha and that's the governor. Protocol of the execution of inmates states that convicts on death row may only receive exoneration if the Governor of California grants it (History of the Death Penalty) Why does one man get this kind of power? Premeditated murder, even if condoned by the governor, lowers the value of human life (Robinson). How did California get to this state where one man governs whether or not another can keep their life? The death penalty remains as flawed and fallible as when it first
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of North California, taxpayers pay 117 million dollars a year on death penalty inmates (Colon 4)! Generally speaking, that $117,000,000 costs way more than life in prison for these inmates.(Colon 4) Who could condone wasting this money? We spend all of this money on people who could care less about the rest of us. But what else could we do? These criminals at least deserve the chance to get off of death row. Only 13 people from 1978-2009 got executed and these 13 people spent between 9 and 24 years on death row (Colon25)! Also, keep in mind that 697 people make up the death row list. California spends so much money on death row inmates that it would make total sense to abolish the death penalty entirely. California owes at least 265 billion dollars (Nation)! Between public facilities and budget deferrals, California can not afford to squander money on something as unnecessary as the death penalty