California's administration of the death penalty is "close to collapse" and would require massive new state spending or changes in sentencing laws to end decades of delay and dysfunction, a state commission reported Monday.
The findings, by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, grew out of the first comprehensive look at the state's death penalty in the 30 years since capital punishment was restored in California.
Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, executive director of the commission, called the report "kind of like poking a stick in a hornet's nest" but said he hoped it would provoke debate.
The 22-member commission, created by the state Senate to recommend improvements in the criminal justice system, included prosecutors, defense lawyers, victims advocates and police.
Although commissioners were unanimous on some core issues, including that nearly $100 million in additional annual spending was needed for reform, they strongly disagreed on others, and the report was accompanied by several dissenting statements.
In one, five law enforcement commissioners complained that the majority was "seeking to undermine public confidence" in the death penalty and that the report "unmistakenly reveals a personal bias" against capital punishment.
Eight other commissioners wrote a separate report calling for abolition of capital punishment.
Four signed a statement saying "the time may be right" for a ballot measure to end the death penalty and alternately proposed limiting capital offenses to less than 10% of first-degree murders.
Monday's report said that 87% of all such murders in California now carry a possible penalty of death.
In polls, Californians have supported capital punishment by a margin of 2 to 1 and have repeatedly voted to toughen sentencing laws.
The main report did not advocate abolishing the death penalty but did note that California could save more than $100 million a year if the state replaced the punishment with sentences of life in prison without possibility of parole. Death row prisoners cost more to confine, are granted more resources for appeals, have more expensive trials and usually die in prison anyway, the commission said.
