LA County: America's Capital Punishment Capital

In striking down America’s death penalty in 1972, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously compared capital punishment to being struck by lightning, arguing that death sentences were given to “a capriciously selected random handful.” For Californians, though, a better metaphor might be an earthquake.

The danger of earthquake, after all, is based on one's proximity to the fault line; death sentences likewise are determined by something as capricious and random as location. And the San Andreas, it turns out, is a fault line for more than just earthquakes: it’s also home to America’s surprising new death penalty capital, Los Angeles County.

LA County condemned 13 people to death in 2009. That’s not only more than any other county in the nation, it’s more than any state in the nation – even capital punishment heavyweights like Texas, Florida and Virginia. The problem isn’t limited to LA County either, as SoCal neighbors Orange and Riverside counties also have aggressive death penalty records, leading the ACLU to dub the three California’s “killer counties.” Bible Belt eat your heart out, the Sun Belt’s a scorcher.

Second Class Justice recently published a set of maps, posted below, that dramatically illustrate the geographic disparity in the death penalty and demonstrate that sentencing records like LA County’s are far outside the mainstream. In fact, just a small handful of counties use the death penalty at all – only 10 percent of American counties have issued a single death sentence in the last six years, and they’re almost exclusively from the South and Southern California.

California mirrors the rest of the nation, with the majority of California counties avoiding the death penalty altogether but a few rogue counties skewing the statewide statistics. According to the ACLU of Northern California’s report, Death in Decline ’09, death sentences have been steadily declining around the state and nation, except in a few counties like Orange, Riverside and most of all Los Angeles, where increasingly aggressive prosecutors are bucking the state and national trend. Those few counties that continue to impose death sentences, particularly LA, are doing so at enormous cost.

The ACLU estimates that each trial seeking death in California costs $1.1 million more than a trial seeking life without the possibility of parole. That’s just the trial phase up to the imposition of a death sentence and is paid for by the county alone; the decades-long appeals process is another bill entirely, that one picked up by the state. Looking just at the county bills, LA has spent $68.2 million on death sentences since 2000, and $14.3 million last year alone. Meanwhile, massive teacher layoffs are decimating LA schools schools and LAPD homicide investigators have been denied overtime funding. That $14 million price tag for last year’s 13 death sentences could have funded 185 homicide investigators or 223 high school teachers. Instead, San Quentin is a little more overcrowded and LA County is even broker than before.

The decision to pursue death sentences in any given county falls ultimately on one person, the district attorney. In LA, that’s Steve Cooley – who’s still locked in a dead heat in the California Attorney General’s race with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, the anti-death penalty DA from San Francisco (one of those counties that doesn’t apply capital punishment). Cooley campaigned on his aggressive death penalty record and even attacked Harris on her opposition, all on the assumption that LA voters would support his stance. Bad assumption. While provisional and absentee ballots are still being counted, the election-day results show Angelinos preferred the anti-death penalty Harris by double digits.

Residents of LA County are making their voices heard beyond the ballot box. They’ve formed the Los Angeles County Coalition for Death Penalty Alternatives, a coalition of organizations and activists working to educate LA County about the realities of capital punishment and lobby the district attorney to end LA’s grim distinction as America’s capital punishment capital. If you live in LA, stop by their website and learn how to get involved locally.

People from around the country can support their efforts by sending Steve Cooley a message: it’s time for Los Angeles to join the rest of the state and nation by letting the death penalty go the way of the Governator. There’s no reason for LA County to pump millions into this failed government bureaucracy when most of the state and 90 percent of American counties get along just fine without it. Take action now and tell DA Cooley to put an end to death sentencing in Los Angeles.

Photo Credit: Todd Jones Photography