Letters: Doing away with the death penalty

Re “Dump the death penalty,� Column, Sept. 13

I appreciate George Skelton’s endorsement of Proposition 34. Spending $184 million a year keeping the death penalty in effect while firing teachers and firefighters makes no sense.

I do have one bone to pick with Skelton, though. While it may be true that no one knows of an innocent having been put to death in California, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. I have met Frankie Carillo, a young man who was exonerated after having spent 20 years on death row. If it weren’t for the lengthy appeals process that death penalty proponents complain about, he might not be alive today. Then we would all have blood on our hands.

FOR THE RECORD:
Death penalty: A Sept. 15 letter to the editor said Frankie Carillo was exonerated after spending 20 years on California’s death row. Carillo had not been sentenced to death, but instead to life in prison. —

Laurel Gord

Venice

What do we do when convicted murderers commit a second, third, fourth or fifth murder of another inmate or a prison guard? Where will we find the guards who will work in a prison with a general population laced with lifer-murderers? How will we protect the other inmates in the general population from these murderers?

I suggest that dead killers don’t kill again, and that the real problem is that the death penalty is not swift and sure.

Jon D. Elder

Monterey Park

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