Death Penalty

By Robert J. "Bob" Evans

The death penalty is state-sponsored killing which does nothing to control crime, but which is racially biased and which kills only the poor.

It is not true that judicial safeguards prevent the execution of the innocent. California's most recent state-sponsored killing, that of Tommy Thompson in July of this year, was conducted in spite of new evidence that he was innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced to die. The federal courts refused to consider this evidence, holding they were prohibited from doing so because the witness had not come forward earlier. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered his execution in spite of the fact that the U.S. Court of Appeals had ruled that incompetent assistance by Thompson's trial lawyer deprived him of a fair trial. The U.S. Supreme Court did not disagree with this conclusion, but instead said that a procedural error by the appellate court itself meant that the issue could not be considered.

Of the five candidates for California Attorney General, four support the death penalty. The Democratic and Republican candidates each argues that he is more in favor of killing than his opponent. Opponents of the death penalty should support the only candidate who stands for life.