Death Penalty: A Basic Flaw of Judicial System

Your April 21 editorial, “Eroding the Death Penalty,” is a call for all Californians to support its abolition rather than wait for its erosion.

The case that the editorial mentions, a county prosecutor having convinced two separate juries that two separate people committed the same murder, points to the basic flaw in our system of justice: It is about winning, not about protecting the people.

As long as we have the death penalty, innocents will be executed, and all taxpayers are instrumental in the coldhearted killing of a human being. Even coldhearted murderers are human beings, sometimes capable of changing.

The careful judicial review of death penalty cases requires time and much money; the result is that the prisoner will have to await his/her execution for years, often decades. This in itself is cruel punishment and unconstitutional.

I wish our governor would assemble the courage to lead Californians out of their error that state killings reduce crime. They don’t.

Herbert Lehnert

Irvine