Douglas Stankewitz, a Native American, was the first per­son sent to California’s death row after cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed in 1978. Thirty-four years lat­er, he remains there as his appeals con­tin­ue. His con­vic­tion was over­turned in 1982 because he had not received a men­tal com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing, despite find­ings by court-appoint­ed doc­tors that he was men­tal­ly unsta­ble and brain-dam­aged as a result of child­hood abuse. His sec­ond tri­al is now being appealed on the grounds that his court-appoint­ed attor­ney was inef­fec­tive. Stankewitz main­tains that, although he was involved in a crime when the vic­tim was killed, he did not com­mit the mur­der. Voters in California will be con­sid­er­ing a ref­er­en­dum to repeal the death penal­ty in November. Supporters of the ini­tia­tive say the death penal­ty is cost­ing the state $184 mil­lion a year in legal costs, and life sen­tences would reduce the costs to just $11.5 mil­lion. Also, tax­pay­ers would save $65 mil­lion a year in prison expen­di­tures because each death row inmate costs $90,000 per year in extra secu­ri­ty and ser­vices. Opponents of the ref­er­en­dum say that the high costs are dri­ven by need­less appeals. California has 728 inmates on death row. Since 1978, it has car­ried out 13 exe­cu­tions, and 3 men have been exon­er­at­ed. Many more on the row have died of natural causes.

(K. Fagan, ​“Death penal­ty focus shifts to costs,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 1, 2012). See Time on Death Row and Costs.

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