Actually, some LWOPP prisoners have been paroled

I am writing to correct a mistake I made in my guest column of April 30, 2018, "What's It Mean to be DA?" The article extolled several of the changes that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a career civil rights lawyer, brought to his office since his election in 2017. After noting that DA Krasner ran on a platform that included his opposition to the death penalty, and in the course of suggesting several changes that progressive prosecutors might implement in California, I observed that, "A large majority of voters in many California counties oppose the death penalty, recognizing the dangers of wrongful convictions, the arbitrariness of the death penalty, its failure to protect anyone, and the gross fiscal irresponsibility of spending literally billions of tax dollars to carry out thirteen executions in forty years." Among the questions I raised was whether elected prosecutors should "continue to seek the death penalty against people convicted of murder despite the reality that nobody who has ever been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in California has ever been released except upon the recognition that they were wrongfully convicted?"

A friendly prosecutor has since educated me that Gov. Jerry Brown recently commuted a number of LWOPP sentences to parole-eligible life sentences. And I have personally confirmed that nine such prisoners appear to have been released on parole in the last year. Thus, I was wrong to state that nobody who has ever been sentenced to LWOPP has been released except in recognition of having been wrongfully convicted.

Of course, these releases do not change the stated points: that the death penalty does not protect anyone any more than a sentence to LWOPP, is arbitrary, risks the executions of innocent individuals, and is grossly irresponsible. Just as our governor has recently commuted a number of LWOPP sentences, he has the power to commute a death sentence, and the imposition of a death sentence does not provide any safety or protection beyond that which is afforded by LWOPP. The recent exoneration of Vicente Benavides from California's death row and national attention to the likely innocence of Kevin Cooper demonstrate the realities of wrongful death sentences right here in California. The gross fiscal irresponsibility of spending literally billions of tax dollars to carry out 13 executions in 40 years speaks for itself. The bottom line remains the same: A voter's "opposition to the death penalty may disqualify them from serving on a jury in a capital case, but it doesn't stop them from voting a District Attorney into office who will not seek the death penalty."