California, not Texas, may be the last border for the death penalty in America – a judgment of Justy

Last year, California imposed more death sentences from any country other than Florida, Texas and Alabama. Although the number of sentences is not large by historical standards, this is a really unusual company for Golden State.

In fact, when Americans think of the death penalty, they almost invariably think first of Texas, not California. For decades, the lonely star state has been the capital of the death penalty of the United States.

And there was a good reason why he won this label. Since 1982, Texas has completed 591 people, much more than any other state. In fact, during this period, a single County of Texas, Harris County, “was responsible for more executions than any state except Texas.”

Looking back to the end of the twentieth century, Texas led the road in death sentences and executions. In 1999, 48 people were sentenced to death in Texas, more than any other country, and it housed 458 people on their death order.

That same year, she made 35 executions, leading the nation again. As Ned Wallpin noted at that time, “Texas executes … people … with a pace that has no parallel in the modern era of death penalty in the United States,” he called Texas “land zero for the death penalty.”

Twenty-five years later, the death penalty seems to have defeated a hasty retreat at Ground Zero. In 2024, Texas made only four executions and issued only six new death sentences.

Today, there are 176 people at the death of the state. Four executions are scheduled in Texas for 2025.

Meanwhile, as the death penalty dries in Texas, it remains very alive in California. At the end of the day, it can be as difficult for cancellation to end the death penalty there as in Texas.

In 2024, California had 632 prisoners with death sentences. This is more than three times the bigger than the Texas number. And again since 1999, the size of the population of the death lines in Texas is decreasing dramatically. In contrast, California has grown.

In order not to think that 2024 was a one -year BLIP, in 2023 the jurors in seven countries have handed over a total of twenty -one death sentences. California was again one of them, joining Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas. The year before California was one of the eleven other states with new death sentences.

Of course, the situation of the death penalty in California is more complicated than these figures suggest.

He has not executed anyone since 2006 when he killed 76-year-old Clarence Allen to a deadly injection, though the state was among the leaders in the murder of people before. A local Fox News station noted: “From 1893 to 2006, California performed 513 prisoners using hanging, deadly gases and a deadly injection.”

The executions stopped in California because of a federal court order after Alan was killed and since in 2019, governor Gavin Newo announced a moratorium. He called the death penalty “failure”, which discriminated against people in color, had no “value of public safety” and “wasted billions of dollars of taxpayers.”

This opinion was reflected in the report of a group established in 2021 by the California legislative body to study the death penalty of the state. This panel called for a candid removal.

“Recent efforts,” “to improve, simplify and accelerate the death penalty system in California failed to achieve its stated goals and may have worsened things.”

In 2022, the governor Newsom ordered the state to begin to dismantle its death order. But Newsom has not made the removal of the death penalty primary priority

This can be because California voters are not eager to completely end the death penalty. In 2016 and again in 2020, they defeated the voting measures that would do just that.

As New York Times He says, “The state works progressively on every issue, but in the death penalty, public opinion is a persistent right to right.”

And even if Newsom wanted to travel with the sentences of anyone who has one, it would not be easy in California, as many of those who are on Death Row have other convictions for a crime. According to state legislation, the Supreme Court of California will have to review any commutation.

So, at least for the time being, the battle against the death penalty in California will have to be conducted by the County County from the county, on one case. As is often the case in the states of the death penalty, there are huge differences in the susceptibility to the death penalty from one place to another in the golden state.

The largest number, 178 of the state’s death sentences, came from Los Angeles County. Another 86 came from Riverside County, which makes him the leader among the most populated cities in California in the death sentences per capita.

At the level of County, the elected prosecutors are the key persons who decide on the death penalty. Not surprisingly, they have many different opinions about what they should do for the death penalty.

Some lead the way in trying to end the death penalty in their counties. Shortly after he took office, former Los Angeles County Prosecutor George Gaskon issued a “series of extensive changes that ended new prosecution of death and moved to a review of existing death sentences in the country’s largest death.”

He not only said he would not seek new death sentences, but promised not to seek the date of execution of any person under the sentence of death. This is part of the reason that he was strongly defeated by an opponent who promised to resume the demand for death sentences and the dates of execution.

Like Gaskon, Santa Clara District Attorney Mark Rosen wants to end the death penalty in his jurisdiction. He also seeks to cancel any death sentence that arose in Santa Clara County.

According to Sacramento beeHis next attempt will be in March. This will be “the latest in more than a dozen cases it has successfully brought in the last few months.”

But other prosecutors in California seemed very reluctant to follow Gascon or Rosen.

Sacramento District Attorney Tien Ho continues to “seek the death penalty in some cases. He says the decision to seek the death sentence is never taken lightly. Once imposed, the death sentences are then automatically appealed. Any decision to change this time will require insurmountable circumstances. “

Jeff Reisig, District Prosecutor in the neighboring Yolo County, has a different opinion. He says he will never do what Rosen is trying to do. “The voters were quite unambiguous,” he notes, “refusing to remove the death penalty.”

District lawyers in the cities of Riverside and San Bernadino, where all the death sentences in California have been betrayed, occupy a similar position. Both were active at the state level to maintain the death penalty.

Confidential people like them join the removal strap will not be easy. In fact, it may not even be possible.

Therefore New York Times Correctly says California is in the Limbo death penalty. As a result, it is likely to continue to be one of the few countries in the country who continue to accumulate deaths year after year.

2024 showed that while the cancelists invent strategies that can achieve the same kind of success in California that they have achieved in Texas, the United States will not be able to get rid of the death penalty at last.