THE DEATH PENALTY CHAMBER
By Alexander Strada
Western Sun associate editor
The brutal nature of Scott Dekraai’s alleged Seal Beach rampage that left eight dead and one injured last month is fuel for the fire for those in support of the death penalty. After all, the usual concern of possibly executing an innocent may not apply. Dekraai told police, “I know what I did,” and considered his victims as collateral damage.
Dekraai showed no remorse, and while execution may seem to be justified, it is actually the most perfect example of why the death penalty is, and always will be, the wrong choice.
Moral arguments aside, there is one clear position against the death penalty that everyone can embrace: revenge is not worth $308 million.
An exhaustive study composed by U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula Mitchell found that the additional costs of capital trials, enhanced death row security and legal representation for offenders has cost California taxpayers $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since the state reinstated its death penalty in 1978, or $184 million a year.
According to the study, a death penalty prosecution costs up to 20 times as much as a life-without-parole case, and abolishing capital punishment would save taxpayers about $1 billion every five or six years.
In a time where our state’s education budget is nowhere to be found and every department is struggling to make cuts, it’s clear that we cannot afford to maintain a broken system that exists for the bankrupt purpose of ending human lives when it can’t even fulfill it.
