Paying the Ultimate Price – Your Death

Lawyers who represent those found guilty of murder always plea for mercy. They ask the court to set the penalty to a life sentence rather than a death sentence. Clearly if you are sentenced to life in prison, that is a better penalty than death. No one wants to die!

Killers never consider that when they commit their crimes। Families and loved ones are devastated by the loss of their husband, wife, son, daughter, etc. Those who oppose the death penalty are more concerned with the life of a killer than the life a killer has taken.

California Death Row has more than 600 inmates. We, the citizens of this state, must pay for keeping these killers alive and well. Here is an example of just one killer described in the Los Angeles Times on March 28, 2008. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-azusa26mar26,1,7568812.story

A jury Tuesday voted for the death penalty for an Azusa gang member who took part in a crime wave that rocked the tranquil San Gabriel Valley city in the early part of the decade।Ralph "Swifty" Flores, 26, sat stoically as a clerk read the verdict in Los Angeles County Superior Court.Flores -- who had grown a mustache over the gang tattoo "Azusa 13" inked below his nose -- was convicted last year of killing four people.For Azusa, the case marks the end to a violent chapter in which a handful of gang members called the "trigger clique" terrorized the town with a series of shootings, killings, robberies and hate crimes targeting blacks.Their rampage lasted from 1999 to 2004.Besides Flores, seven other Azusa 13 gang members were convicted of the crimes and sentenced to lengthy prison terms -- five of them in one 2004 trial."It was a violent time for the city," said Sgt. Mike Bertelsen, Azusa's gang expert. "We were having a murder a month at the end of 2002."

Despite the unrelenting random killing of innocent people there are are those who continue to oppose the death sentence. Recent examples are Jamiel Shaw Jr., 17, a black youth, was shot in the head and back at 2150 Fifth Ave. in Arlington Heights at about 8:40 p.m. on Sunday, March 2, 2008 and prosecutors have charged a 30-year-old woman with the murder of an LAX baggage handler, Samantha Padilla, who was shot and killed on freeway off ramp in South Los Angeles.

Now the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that lethal injections are not cruel and unusual punishment when carrying out the death penalty। The state of California should proceed immediately in putting those killers to death। If not, the death penalty should be removed as a form of penalty for murder। I favor the death penalty if it is carried out within a year or two of the sentence. It is a mockery of the law to leave people on death row for deacades.