California: No Room at the Death Penalty Inn

What if they gave a death penalty and no one was killed?

The country’s largest death row has run out of room.

As NPR member station KCRW reports, that’s because a legal fight has meant that the state has not put an inmate to death in nearly a decade, leaving more than 750 of them on death row in the state.

Can it really be called a “death penalty” if they don’t really put criminals to death? California taxpayers suffer from the double whammy of funding automatic appeals for death sentences which then aren’t even carried out if upheld, so we get to pay for life imprisonment too. Add to all of that the need for additional funding to expand death rows in prisons and these murderers are getting pretty expensive.

Also, where are the supposed deterrent effects of the death penalty if criminals know the “death” part isn’t in play?