A recent legislative hearing in Sacramento focused on the death penalty and its implementation costs. Ventura County Star writer Timm Herdt reports that no one at the hearing was able to answer a key question: Why are other states like Texas and Virginia able to hand down death sentences and have them upheld through the federal appeals process? Could it be that the high costs of capital punishment in California are not inherent to the penalty, but rather, the result of deliberate and improper delaying by penalty opponents who see the current economic climate as an opportunity to abolish it in California once and for all?

Since passage of Proposition 8 in 1982, the California Supreme Court has been governed by the U.S. Constitution in deciding whether evidence gathered in criminal cases, including death penalty cases, was properly collected and admitted into evidence. The 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, which also review these death penalty cases, are governed by the same body of law.

Other federal circuit courts, like those with jurisdiction over states such as Texas and Virginia, have no trouble expeditiously deciding death penalty appeals using the exact same law that applies to death penalty cases in California.

If the death penalty system is broken, it is because some key players, including federal judges, defense attorneys and legislators opposed to the death penalty, do everything in their power to hinder and obstruct implementation of the penalty in California. As we mentioned in a previous post, their maneuvers have included failing to provide funding for appellate attorneys and delaying the filing of legal briefs to avoid approving a death penalty verdict.

As we’ve said before, if one were to substitute the 9th Circuit with the 5th or 4th Circuits, which cover Texas and Virginia respectively, we would be seeing a different outcome in California’s death penalty cases pending in federal courts. In addition, if California were to properly fund the death penalty appeals process, it would be shortened dramatically.

Families who’ve lost loved ones to murderous death row inmates, along with the public at large, deserve honest arguments from California’s capital punishment opponents. Citing deliberately inflated costs isn’t one of them.