photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The San Quentin death chamber has been shut down, as well as the state’s lethal injection program.
by Leslie Layton
Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a passionate defense of his moratorium on use of the death penalty in California, pointed Tuesday to well-documented inequities in the criminal justice system that helped lead him to his decision.
The process that places convicts on Death Row is “error prone,” Newsom said in a telebriefing with members of the ethnic media. “I think it’s a racist system that disproportionally affects black and brown people.”
Newsom told journalists belonging to the Ethnic Media Services network that economic and geographic inequities in the criminal justice system also played a role in his decision, as well as practical and moral considerations.