Marin’s Top Health Official Warned SQ Warden, Was Rebuffed

If you thought the travesty of the Chino-Quentin transfer was the absolute rock bottom of prison management, prepare to dig. Today’s Chron reports that Dr. Matthew Willis, Marin County’s top health official, has written a letter to Judge Howard of the Marin Superior Court, in which he documents his efforts to get San Quentin officials to quarantine the incoming people from Chino–to no avail. Megan Cassidy reports:

Dr. Matthew Willis had learned that the 122 prisoners weren’t tested for weeks before they were transferred on May 30. Unless they were “radically sequestered” from the native population, Willis warned, the prison was setting the stage for a major outbreak.

This advice — given in a June 1 conference call with acting San Quentin Warden Ron Broomfield and other high-ranking prison staffers — was the first in a series of public health recommendations to be issued and ultimately dismissed by prison officials, Willis said in a letter to a Marin County Superior Court judge and in an interview Tuesday with The Chronicle.

You’ll want to click on the article and read Dr. Willis’ letter in full, as well as the astonishing letter he received. Prison officials forwarded him a letter written by CDCR’s General Counsel, Jennifer Neill, who wrote, “The State is not an entity under local health officers’ jurisdictions, and thus local health officer orders are not valid against the State.” Neill hadn’t even written the letter to Dr. Willis: she had written it to Kings County’s health officials when they offered advice regarding the horrific outbreak in Avenal. Go ahead, read it for yourself. I put a snippet of it above, to make sure you get the gist of it, but you need to see this with your own eyes.

As the horror settles in the pit of your stomach, let’s break this down:

  1. It was always obvious that prison outbreaks are connected to outbreaks in the surrounding counties (this should be obvious to you, too, by now; the virus doesn’t read the Penal Code.) Because of this, traditionally, there was communication between county health officials and the prison on matters of public health, such as the flu vaccine and an outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease.
  2. There had already been an incident in which, rather than heeding advice from the people directly affected by the outbreaks in prison, CDCR decided to ignore the advice and instead jockey for position and squabble about jurisdiction. Outcome: several hundreds of people became infected and a few died.
  3. Then, months later, this occurred again. Again, the health official of the surrounding county offered advice. Again, CDCR chose to ignore the advice and instead jockey for position and squabble about jurisdiction. Indeed, they were apparently so pleased with how they had handled the previous incident that they didn’t even bother to write a new letter; instead, they simply forwarded the same letter to the health officials of the new county. Outcome: several thousands of people became infected and a few dozen died.

Friends, this is shocking. If all the previous warnings, all the alarm bells sounded by public health and criminal justice experts, did not suffice to prove that San Quentin officials, and the warden, exhibited deliberate indifference to the lives of the people under their supervision and care, this incident alone should make all of us sick to our stomachs.

More News of COVID-19 in CA Prisons

A few important items from the last few days:

Democracy Now! devoted an episode to the San Quentin COVID-19 disaster, including conversations with folks on the inside, as well as Ella Baker Center’s State Campaigner James King, commenting on the structure of Quentin and why it is incompatible with healthcare:

Today at 1pm, the #StopSanQuentinOutbreak coalition is hosting a virtual press conference on FB Live, featuring updates on the situation in prison, the Plata v. Newsom litigation, and the habeas corpus cases that have been consolidated at the Marin Superior Court. FYI, I am authoring the brief on behalf of amici curiae the ACLU of Northern California and twenty of my colleagues, criminal justice and corrections experts. I will post the brief in full here after it is filed.

The first article based on data collected by the UCLA COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project is out from JAMA, showing that the the adjusted COVID-19 mortality rate in the prison population is 3.0 times higher than would be expected if the age and sex distributions of the US and prison populations were equal.

Finally, my article California’s COVID-19 Prison Disaster and the Trap of Palatable Reform is out from Boom California and offered free to the public on Boom’s open access platform. I decided to publish with Boom, rather than with a paywalled academic journal, because I think it is crucial for anyone in CA who is looking for background on this crisis to learn the background and understand why the proposed solutions are inadequate. Please share widely with your networks.

Outbreak “Abating” at Quentin? It Can Easily Return

I’m noticing public attention wavering away from the San Quentin disaster, and my concern is that the slowing down of the contagion has lulled people into a false assumption that the prison is doing what it should and conquering this challenge. Lest you believe this, let’s talk about what’s happened in other places. Avenal (pictured above) is a case in point. As in previous posts, Chad Goerzen and I are using CDCR’s own data, from the COVID-19 tracking tool.

The outbreak in Avenal happened early on in the pandemic, and was probably one of the most severe outbreaks before the transfer from CIM to Quentin. Avenal’s casualties were among the first behind bars, too. At the beginning of June, most tests were coming in negative, and prison authorities probably thought that the outbreak had abated. Then, in mid-July, case numbers started climbing up again.

Another example is CIW, pictured below. Note the alarming numbers in early May, the decline in testing (and in cases! in late May and in June, and then the spike in numbers of cases in mid- to late-July.

There are other examples of apparent abatement followed by a resurgence of the outbreak. Here’s the data for CMC, where initially there were only a handful of cases. As opposed to other prisons, you can see that CMC continued to test people periodically, on a weekly basis, even when they had no contagion, and the in late July they caught a new wave with dozens of new infections.

Here’s the picture for Corcoran, which seems to have had three waves of outbreak. You’ll note that one of them followed the ill-fated transfer from Chino. Corcoran did test a lot of people in early July and found no infections, but toward mid- to late-July we’re seeing infections again.

Finally, here’s a more ambiguous resurgence in LA County State Prison. Note that this prison was conducting very few tests between the two waves, so what they are seeing from early July onward could simply be a consequence of the increased testing.

What can we learn from this, particularly from the examples of Avenal and CIW? The obvious takeaway is that a serious outbreak does not protect a prison from a recurrence. There are numerous reasons for this. The jury’s apparently still out as to the extent to which recent infection and recovery effectively inoculate a person against a recurrence. It seems that people who get reinfected are less contagious, but this is highly dependent upon their medical condition and environmental immunosuppression (and there’s no absolute certainty that the person was actually reinfected after recovery, rather than just continuously sick or just expelling dead cells.) If, indeed, reinfection is possible–whether or not to the same contagious extent–then a mere staff member who gets takeout on the way home could restart the cycle. But this is exacerbated by the renewal of prison transfers which, I believe, start again today. We now know, because (or, actually, despite) the scant reporting from BSCC, that several jails are hotbeds of COVID-19, with dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of infections. The slow drip of people out of state prisons is going to be offset by the incoming bottleneck of people from jails, and one can only hope against hope that they’ll bother testing people on both ends of the transfer this time.

In short, keep your eyes on the human rights crime. It’s slowing down not because we are succeeding, but because the virus is succeeding. And state officials–at the Governor’s mansion, at the prisons, at the courts–are not doing enough to stop it in its tracks.

Just What We Need from the L.A. Times: Tired Tropes, Misinformation, Hatred and Dehumanization

During this pandemic, I’ve seen some hate-baiting news coverage of the COVID-19 disaster in prisons, but today’s article in the L.A. Times truly takes the cake. I am astonished at the unfortunate choice to title the article “California is releasing some murderers due to COVID-19. Some say it should free more” (UPDATE: as you can see from the picture above, our feedback helped and they changed the tone of the headline.) The “some” to which the original headline referred, who are discussed in a mocking and discrediting tone in the piece, represent robust, decades-long criminological evidence that the distinction between so-called “violent” and “nonviolent” offender is meaningless from a public safety perspective.

It is incomprehensible that, as a deadly pandemic ravages prisons and inflicts punishments that can’t be found anywhere in the California Penal Code, the L.A. Times recurs to these cheap tropes to attract its readerships. The writers chose to interview victims who, while entitled to their personal opinions, are not the statewide curators of victims’ perspectives, and do not represent the thousands of compassionate human beings whose lives were wrecked by violent crime and nonetheless believe that prisoners were not sentenced do die by COVID-19. They also, astoundingly, dragged–yet again!–the tired trope of Willie Horton to foment hatred and dehumanization.

Because I think this is shameful, lazy, hate-baiting journalism, and because I don’t need to read newspapers whose criminal justice analysis hasn’t progressed since the Reagan Administration, I am canceling my subscription to the Los Angeles Times. If you share my views, give their customer service department a piece of your mind tomorrow morning: 213-283-2274.

Prison Workers’ Union Files Grievance; Silence from the Prison Guards’ Union

The union that represents health care workers, clerical staff, custodians and other prison employees, SEIU Local 1000, has filed a wide-ranging grievance against CDCR and CCHCS (the Federal Receiver’s prison health services) for employing them, throughout the state, in unsafe conditions. Megan Cassidy for the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The grievance, filed July 28, alleges that union officials documented safety violations at all 35 prisons owned and operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or CDCR.

“Some of these prisons have already had serious COVID-19 outbreaks,” the grievance states. “(Prison and prison health care officials) should still be able to prevent outbreaks if they take all possible and reasonable steps to prevent them.”

The grievance lists numerous violations:

  • Inadequate supply of hand sanitizer machines and disinfecting wipes
  • Common areas at worksite are not being cleaned throughout the day
  • No training received on the state’s COVID-19 health and safety guidelines
  • Employees are not getting notice when someone at your worksite has tested positive for COVID-19
  • Not everyone at institution wears a mask
  • Six foot physical distance is not being maintained at worksite
  • Failure of adequate testing of staff and inmates
  • Transfer of inmates without adequate testing [this pertains to the infamous transfer from Chino, which brought COVID-19 to Quentin and Corcoran–HA]
  • Failure to quarantine or isolate inmates with suspected exposure
  • Failure to maintain adequate internal command or control
  • Failure to provide safety protocols to protect staff from infection
  • Inadequate supplies and types of PPE

The union demands taking the following steps:

  • Take all necessary steps to ensure employee health and safety
  • Ensure that each institution has a COVID-19 incident command center with both medical and custody staff
  • Have a clear written plan for spaces/areas that will be utilized to isolate/quarantine suspected and COVID-19 confirmed inmates at each institution.
  • Ensure that management at all levels understands their responsibilities and role in preventing the further spread of COVID-19.
  • Halt the movement of inmates between prisons and intakes from counties [this is crucial because, as I learned today on Twitter from people on the inside, transfers are scheduled to resume this coming Monday – HA]
  • Ensure that DAI and CCHCS are doing everything possible to maintain six foot physical distance between persons (including allowing all employees possible to telework), providing adequate hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes and are enforcing that everyone wear masks/or face coverings
  • Ensure that all employees are trained with the latest State of California health and safety guidelines and that all employees are noticed about possible COVID-19 exposure at their worksite.

This was a long time coming; I’m surprised the union is taking these steps only now, but there’s something else that bothers me. In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, Scotland Yard Inspector Gregory asks Sherlock Holmes, “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes replies, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory says, “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” To which Holmes answers, “That was the curious incident.” I bring this up because, if there’s any union that should expected to vociferously defend the interests, safety, and health of its members, it’s the strongest union in California— the CCPOA.

I’ve spent quite a while today on the CCPOA’s website, trying to find a sliver of a reference to COVID-19. Nothing on the front page; nothing under “news and information.” They do take care to mention a study according to which PTSD rates among prison guards rivals that of war veterans and to take pride in a 5% salary raise from 2019, but nothing whatsoever about the obvious. CCPOA guards face as much risk from the virus as the workers represented by SEIU Local 1000; the CDCR reporting system does not distinguish between guards and other staff members. To-date, CDCR reports 1976 COVID-19 cases among staff, as well as eight deaths.

CCPOA is not a particularly timid union. As Josh Page explains in his wonderful book about the union, CCPOA has been at the helm of much of the punitive animus in California, branding itself as a tough-on-crime organization and partnering with (or puppeteering) Crime Victims United of California, with whom CCPOA shares numerous board members. CCPOA and CVU are largely responsible for the public perception of punitivism as natural and ubiquitous, a perception not shared by many survivors of violent crime. And here we have a matter that’s not about fancy penological philosophy, but is actually the bread-and-butter of what a union is supposed to do: protect its members’ health and safety on the job. Instead, here’s what the Sac Bee reports about their salary negotiations with Gov. Newsom:

California correctional officers would take one furlough day per month and defer raises for two years under a proposed agreement their union has negotiated with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association’s two-year agreement appears to be the first deal a state union has reached with the administration over pay cuts Newsom proposed for all state workers to help address a projected $54 billion budget deficit.

The tentative agreement will require a vote from the union’s 26,000 members to pass and will need approval from the Legislature.

The agreement uses a personal leave program to reduce officers’ pay by 4.5% — roughly the equivalent of one day of work per month — for two years. In exchange, the officers receive 12 hours of paid leave per month, the equivalent of one and a half days of work.

A 3% raise the officers were scheduled to receive July 1 is deferred until July 1, 2022.

The agreement would reduce the state’s spending on correctional officers by 8.99%, or about $395 million, according to a cost summary of the agreement. Correctional officers make up a large share of the state’s general fund spending on its workforce, accounting for about a third of general fund payroll spending.

Newsom’s original proposal of two unpaid leave days would have reduced the state’s spending on the group by 9.53%, or about $419 million, according to the summary.

The agreement softens the impact of the cuts on correctional officers’ pocketbooks by suspending a paycheck deduction that funds the health care plans they’ll use in retirement. That change allows workers’ to keep 4% of their paycheck that had been going to future health care costs.

The state also would cover an increase to health insurance costs of .54 percent, according to the summary.

The deal would suspend holiday pay for seven of the 11 state holidays, eliminate one personal development day for the term of the agreement, suspend night and weekend differentials and make other tweaks to pay.

This is not great for CCPOA, though it does somewhat soften the blow of the salary cuts. But how could CCPOA negotiate with the Governor, amidst a pandemic, and not mention their working conditions, even in passing?

The curious thing about the guards’ COVID-19 interests is that the best thing that can be done for them, which is, obviously, mass releases to allow for social distancing and minimally competent healthcare, stands in opposition to what their leadership has advocated for in the last forty years. CCPOA built its power advocating for more and longer prison sentences, getting its political cache from being “the toughest beat” and from the sheer enormity of the California correctional apparatus. But this does not necessarily reflect the rational self-interest of its members, which even in ordinary times would find it safer and easier to wrangle and supervise fewer people in a less crowded facility. In that respect, the virus is not so much reversing the interests of the guards as it is putting them in clearer focus. And if this is the case, then it seems that CCPOA is not really representing its members properly, and we’re seeing a pretty dire example of political capture.

SCOTUS Temporarily Relieves OC Jail from Obligation to Take COVID-19 Precaution Measures

Yesterday, in a 5-4 vote, SCOTUS stayed a lower court’s preliminary injunction that required the Orange County Sheriff to implement certain COVID-19 safety measures. The decision, Barnes v. Ahlman, is brief, with only Justice Sotomayor writing for the dissent (what a superb law-and-society Justice she is–and a fantastic writer.) Before delving into the decision, it’s worthwhile looking at the BSCC reports for the OC, which I’ve placed above. Now, the webpage claims that they updated it yesterday, but it also claims that the numbers we’re seeing are for the week between 7/19 and 7/25, which is adds to my impression that BSCC reporting, which is already woefully late to the game, needs considerable improvement if it is to be informative. For what it’s worth, during that week–and things might’ve exponentially spread since then–the OC jail system had at least 17 cases and had tested less than 10% of their population. Moreover, Justice Sotomayor writes that “[a]t the time of the District Court’s injunction, the Jail had witnessed an increase of more than 300 confirmed COVID–19 cases in a little over a month.” You wouldn’t know this from the BSCC page, because for unfathomable reasons they don’t report cumulative cases, nor do they provide the data they had before the dashboard was created. I really hope that the COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project will be able to obtain better information, including cumulative and historical numbers–apparently the numbers exist, because local newspapers were reporting on them weeks ago–but I’m not holding my breath. In any case, putting together Justice Sotomayor’s summary and the BSCC data points to a worrisome situation: they’ve had hundreds of cases and they are currently doing hardly any testing, which could explain why they numbers seem small.

Anyway, back to the decision. Justice Sotomayor refers to the decision to stay the injunction as “extraordinary.” Ordinarily, the conditions for granting a stay require (1) a “reasonable probability” that SCOTUS will actually grant certiorari to hear the case, (2) a “fair prospect” that SCOTUS will subsequently reverse the decision on the merits, and (3) “a likelihood that irreparable harm [will] result from the denial of a stay”. None of these apply here: the Ninth Circuit ruled on clearly established law–it found ample proof of “deliberate indifference” because the jails were forewarned about this months ago and knew the risks–and, even if the Eighth Amendment is not grounds enough for relief, there is an alternative claim under the ADA. Therefore, odds that SCOTUS will hear this case and reverse are slim. Worst of all, the “likelihood of irreparable harm” is obvious from the facts, described in “dozens of inmate declarations”:

Although the Jail had been warned that “social distancing is the cornerstone of reducing transmission of COVID–19,”
inmates described being transported back and forth to the jail in crammed buses, socializing in dayrooms with no space to distance physically, lining up next to each other to wait for the phone, sleeping in bunk beds two to three feet apart, and even being ordered to stand closer than six feet apart when inmates tried to socially distance. Moreover, although the Jail told its inmates that they could “best protect” themselves by washing their hands with “soap and water throughout the day,” numerous inmates reported receiving just one small, hotel-sized bar of soap per week. And after symptomatic inmates were removed from their units, other inmates were ordered to dispose of their belongings without gloves or other protective equipment. Finally, despite the Jail’s stated policy to test and isolate individuals who reported or exhibited symptoms consistent with COVID–19, multiple symptomatic detainees described being denied tests, and others recounted sharing common spaces with infected or symptomatic inmates.

That the Sheriff’s Department gets to benefit from a pattern of recklessness and obfuscation is sickening in itself, but what’s really sickening is that even as I type this, more cases are preventable. What kind of public official spends their times and resources fighting an order to implement sensible precautions, instead of actually implementing them? BSCC’s feebleness is all over this, starting with the flimsy data collection effort and continuing with these disturbing practices at the county level. The other thing that nauseates me is that there’s no reason to assume that everything is tickety-boo at the other jails, and we now need to expand our list of “known unknowns” at the county level to actual practices of the ground. We can’t make definitive extrapolations from this OC example without knowing more, but if the OC “inmate health and safety” is just a facade, there’s no assurance that other jails are following their own COVID-19 protocols.

What Kind of World Is This?

As I’m collaborating with a legal effort that might help some people at San Quentin get home, safe(r) from the raging pandemic, members of the #StopSanQuentinOutbreak forwarded me this video, which was broadcast on yesterday’s news. Will you just watch this, please, and answer me–what kind of world is this?

BSCC Publishes Data on COVID-19 in Jails

Finally, the BSCC has published its COVID-19 data on juvenile and adult county facilities. But don’t rejoice yet: it’s very sparse. For Alameda County, Santa Rita Jail is still seeing active infections, as you see above. Thankfully, so far no cases in Alameda youth facilities, but they also report having done less than 11 cases (which could or could not mean zero tests.)

Things look grimmer, as you’d expect, in Fresno, where people in jail are suing the sheriff over inadequate prevention and treatment. Note that, to get a sense of the cumulative outbreak, you need to look at “adult outcomes” at the bottom. They report 507 cases resolved (how many of these folks were released? hospitalized? isolated? no answers.)

I’m not sure why this tool isn’t providing us with an aggregate picture for jails, like the CDCR one does, but I’m glad it at least groups jails from the same county on the same page. I would have liked to see the juvenile and adult jails on the same page. In any case, this allows me to overlay data from the L.A. Times for each county onto the situation in the jails and show how the traffic of staff and residents between the community and the institution operates. My suspicion is that, given the shorter stays in jails, we’re going to see more interactions between jails and the community. I also worry about whether some of these places are acting now as “bottlenecks” because local prisons are seeing outbreaks.

In other news, CCI and Avenal are in very bad shape, again, which indicates that we cannot assume that the outbreak truly abated there (or, for that matter, anywhere else where there’s no new infections.)

New Outbreak at CIW: Van Houten’s Fate in Gov. Newsom’s Hands

After a spike in early June and an apparent abatement, COVID-19 is once again tearing through the California Institute for Women (CIW) in Chino. In the last 14 days, the prison tested 1,200 of its 1,413 residents (housed in a facility designed to hold 1,398 people – slightly above 100% capacity.) The testing count on the tracking tool seems to suggest testing done in batches, but we don’t know how they are managing isolation in a crowded facility–hopefully not taking a page from the book of this women’s prison in Texas.

CIW is of special interest to me, because a few days ago we learned that Leslie van Houten, who is serving her sentence there, has been yet again recommended for parole. Van Houten has been consistently recommended for parole since 2017, but governors–first Brown, now Newsom–keep reversing the recommendation for what seems to me, after having pored over 50 years’ worth of her prison record, purely political reasons. Van Houten has maintained a clean disciplinary record, participated in a variety of laudable programs, and incessantly excavated her psyche to show “insight” to the Board. She participated in the murders when she was 19 years old, manipulated and sexually exploited in a setting that, with today’s #MeToo sensibilities, might have shed a completely different light on her involvement.

I mention van Houten’s case because it is emblematic of the dilemma that Gov. Newsom faces with countless other cases. The right thing to do is to release older prisoners, who are more vulnerable to the virus; these people, who serve long sentences, are serving them for violent crimes they committed decades ago. Everything we know about life course criminology supports the prediction that they pose no risk to public safety–they themselves face a risk by remaining behind bars.

In Yesterday’s Monsters I explain how the Manson family cases came to shape California’s extreme punishment regime, and how these cases were impacted by this new regime in turn. This is the chance for a politician who has consistently ran, and prevailed, on a platform of doing the right thing in the face of baseless political pressures. There is no ambiguity about the right thing to do now. Van Houten is 70 years old, has been consistently found to pose very low risk to public safety by actuarial instruments and by everyone who has interacted with her, and there’s a pandemic going on.

Van Houten is not the only person at CIW facing these risks. Just a few days ago, advocates were overjoyed to welcome home Patricia Wright, a 69-year-old cancer patient who doctors say has mere months to live, after she served 23 years in prison. Wright’s release encouraged me, given the infuriating and heartbreaking scene just eleven years ago at Susan Atkins’ last hearing. Perhaps the pandemic is driving home, finally, the message that allowing an older person to die at home with their loved ones, or live out in peace the few years they have left, is not a weakness, nor a slight to the victims. Perhaps it is driving home the message that compassion is an essential component of our humanity. Will Gov. Newsom choose to do the right thing for van Houten and other women at CIW, from both public health and public safety perspectives, or will he succumb to unfounded public pressure, hysteria, and fear?

California, Euthanize Capital Punishment Already

Local news are ablaze with Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen’s announcement from Wednesday, according to which his office will no longer seek the death penalty. The Chron reports:

Rosen said the change in policy was inspired by trips to Montgomery, Ala., first with a faith-based group and then with his family. After visits to civil rights museums and historical sites, Rosen said, he learned not only about slavery, but also what he called “the abhorrent misuse of the death penalty” against people of color.

“In the past, I supported the death penalty when I viewed heinous murders through eyes of the victims and families of those whose lives were taken,” Rosen said. But in recent weeks, “I have tried to look at this issue through the lens of race and inequity.

“These cases use up massive public resources and cruelly drag on for years with endless appeals that give no finality to the victims’ families,” he said. “There’s the tragic but real risk of wrongful conviction. And, shamefully, our society’s most drastic and devastating law enforcement punishment has been used disproportionately against defendants of color.”

Michael Cabanatuan, “Santa Clara County DA Jeff Rosen no longer to seek death penalty,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 22, 2020

Things I learned from colleagues who study progressive prosecution and are in the know about Santa Clara County: Rosen is facing a challenge in the form of a more progressive candidate for D.A., and apparently he has been hiring the people that Chesa Boudin fired upon becoming San Francisco’s D.A. Frankly, if the outcome is real reform–ending cash bail, establishing an integrity team to investigate criminal police misconduct, and requiring deputy district attorneys and the office’s investigators, who are currently required to take police ridealongs, to also visit communities, whether the motives are pure or not does not interest me (they never can be with elected officials.)

But this decision raises some bigger questions about the prosecutors who still pursue capital trials despite the fact that we have a moratorium on the death penalty and, actually, no longer have a working death chamber at San Quentin (see image above.) Why are we still paying the enormous expense of capital trials and appeals as if we have a functional capital punishment? Perhaps because some county prosecutors are still behaving as if we have it–as late as last month, apparently, the California District Attorneys’ Association held a webinar on “changes to execution protocols, including California’s.” As members of the CDAA know full well, the “changes” in California consist of the fact that we no longer have an actual room with equipment to conduct executions, nor do we have the chemicals we squabbled for decades about, to the tune of billions of dollars in litigation.

I can see how, in some cases, district attorneys might feel the need to signal to their constituents that they consider this or that homicide case particularly heinous by publicly seeking capital punishment; however, as the L.A. Times explains here, even with someone with a shocking record of homicides like the Golden State Killer, there is no point in a death penalty that has no meaning whatsoever. Why capital punishment? So that DeAngelo can spend the rest of his years litigating our tax money away and die a natural death, like the vast majority of deaths on death row? What would be the point?

Rosen and other prosecutors are making the only practical choice under the circumstances. Even if you are a believer in capital punishment, as any New Age guru worth their salt will tell you, you have to let go of what no longer serves you.