Death penalty ‘fix’ imperils innocents

Re “Reform death penalty appeals,” Opinion, Jan. 7

I commend California Chief Justice Ronald M. George for acknowledging that California’s death penalty is “dysfunctional and needs reform.” But the reform he selected is the one least certain to remedy the problems. Under George’s plan, new layers of review would actually be added to the system. The state Supreme Court would review cases before and after sending them to the appellate courts, adding to the time it takes to decide a case. It would also add to the work of the appellate courts and require time currently spent hearing civil cases to be devoted to capital appeals.

Two 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges, Alex Kozinski and Arthur L. Alarcon, proposed other reforms: “The solution ... would be to decrease the number of crimes punishable by death and the circumstances under which death may be imposed so that we only convict ‘the number of people we truly have the means and the will to execute.’ ” If California is to undertake something as significant as amending its Constitution, we should choose a reform that may actually do something to improve the system.

Jennifer Friedman

Los Angeles

George wants to speed up the death penalty appeals system in California by transferring cases from the Supreme Court to the lower Courts of Appeal. In an era when it becomes clearer every day that we are wrongly convicting some people and they frequently have to spend decades in prison before the error comes to light, speeding up the system seems likely to result in the execution of innocent people.

Although I’m sure that speeding up the death penalty appeals system would result in quicker executions and less work for George, until we can be sure we’re not convicting the wrong person, this is an idea sure to result in irreversible mistakes that would cost innocent people their lives.

Michael Goodman

North Hollywood