Money for executing mentally ill inmates would be better spent helping them

To the editor: The poor, the mentally ill and the disabled — those are the people who are sentenced to die in this state. (“A sane approach to dealing with mentally ill death row inmates,” editorial, June 11)

The death penalty is expensive. Sentencing someone to die costs taxpayers considerably more than sentencing someone to spend the rest of his or her life in prison. Money spent on the death penalty could be spent on education, law enforcement, victim assistance and mental health treatment.

Attempting to speed up executions will cost even more money and will increase the likelihood that an innocent person will be executed. Attempting to speed up the death penalty will impose a tremendous strain on the already overburdened courts.

The only question that remains is why the lawmakers in this state are unwilling to publicly state what they all know — that the death penalty is irreparably broken and should be abolished?

Jennifer Friedman, Los Angeles

The writer is a Los Angeles County public defender.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook