Effort To End CA Death Penalty By Two Polar Opposites.

In an interesting development, Mike Farrell, of Death Penalty Focus (a group that I have been involved with in the past), and "the hanging judge of Orange County, Don McCartin, have joined forces to try to end the Death Penalty.  See the story in the LA Daily News.  

Here is the perspective of a former judge who sentence 9 people to death.

Don McCartin, having sentenced nine men to death and then watched as the system examined, re-examined and finally overturned all of his convictions while executing none of them, now believes the death penalty is a hideously expensive fraud. It tortures the loved ones of murder victims by dragging them through the years of complex appeals required by the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to protect the innocent.

He's aware of the constitutional dilemma created by the tension between the need to protect the rights of the accused in a death case and the desire for some form of justice to be done. But he's outraged that the mother of Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl raped and murdered in 1979, is now required to sit through yet a third trial of the alleged killer almost 30 years later. A sentence of life without parole would have allowed her to go on with her own life so long ago.

Well said.  And, as Mike Farrell said "our entire society is harmed by the dehumanization process inherent in state killing."

Check out Death Penalty Focus of California.