New Voices

Posted: February 09, 2003
in

Press Conference Hosted by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice on June 30, 2008 in Sacramento, CA.

Prominent individuals have begun raising their concerns about the death penalty. Many are current or former supporters of capital punishment.

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Former Director of the California Department of Corrections and Warden of San Quentin Speaks About the Death Penalty

Excerpts from Los Angeles Times Op-Ed by Jeanne Woodford:

"As the warden of San Quentin, I presided over four executions. After each one, someone on the staff would ask, 'Is the world safer because of what we did tonight?' We knew the answer: No."
 

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"I worked in corrections for 30 years...[d]uring those years, I came to believe that the death penalty should be replaced with life without the possibility of parole."

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"I did my job, but I don't believe it was the right thing to have done. We should have condemned [Robert] Massie to permanent imprisonment -- that would have made the world safer. But on the night we executed him, when the question was asked, "Did this make the world safer?" the answer remained no. Massie needed to be kept away from society, but we did not need to kill him."

"Why should we pay to keep him locked up for life? I hear that question constantly. Few people know the answer: It's cheaper -- much, much cheaper than execution."

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"I wish the public knew how much the death penalty affects their wallets. California spends an additional $117 million each year pursuing the execution of those on death row. Just housing inmates on death row costs an additional $90,000 per prisoner per year above what it would cost to house them with the general prison population."

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"If we condemned the worst offenders, like Massie, to permanent imprisonment, resources now spent on the death penalty could be used to investigate unsolved homicides, modernize crime labs and expand effective violence prevention programs, especially in at-risk communities."

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"To take a life in order to prove how much we value another life does not strengthen our society. It is a public policy that devalues our very being and detracts crucial resources from programs that could truly make our communities safe."

Jeanne Woodford, "Death Row Realism," Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2008). See New Voices and Costs.