The Chief Justice of California ​‘s Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, recent­ly called for a re-eval­u­a­tion of the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem, say­ing the sys­tem is not work­ing and ​“not effec­tive.” In her first pub­lic com­ments on the issue since she became head of the the state’s high­est court, Justice Cantil-Sakauye point­ed to the present predica­ment for the state, say­ing the death penal­ty sys­tem need­ed ​“struc­tur­al change, and we don’t have the mon­ey to cre­ate the kind of change that is need­ed.” The court sys­tem was forced to cut $200 mil­lion from its bud­get this year. When asked if she sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the for­mer pros­e­cu­tor appoint­ed to the court by Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger, said, ​“I don’t know if the ques­tion is whether you believe in it any­more. I think the greater ques­tion is its effec­tive­ness and giv­en the choic­es we face in California, should we have a mer­it-based dis­cus­sion on its effec­tive­ness and costs?” She said the issue ​“real­ly is up to the vot­ers or to the Legislature,” ask­ing whether the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem can ​“make bet­ter use of our resources.” The chief jus­tice’s com­ments echoed those of her pre­de­ces­sor, Chief Justice Ronald M. George, also a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor, who called the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem ​“dys­func­tion­al.”

(M. Dolan, ​“California chief jus­tice urges reeval­u­at­ing death penal­ty,” Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2011.) A pro­posed 2012 bal­lot mea­sure would replace California’s death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. See SAFECalifornia​.org. See also New Voices and California.

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