Nebraska ends the death penalty

But in California we get this:

H/t Marin Independent Journal.

California has not executed anyone since 2006. Last year a federal district judge ruled that the current system violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment by imposing a sentence that

“no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death.”

Some convicted death row inmates do die at San Quentin. A man sentenced in 1991 apparently committed suicide just last week.

Officials reported that since 1978 when California reinstated capital punishment, 66 condemned inmates have died from natural causes, 24 have committed suicide, 14 have been executed, and seven died from other causes. The causes of death are uncertain in four cases.

Nebraska legislators arrived at the decision to replace death sentences with life without parole for a variety of reasons. Some feared executing an innocent; some had moral objections; many saw the issue as one of costs to the state with no benefit. All those issues pertain exponentially in California. Isn't it time we caught up with Nebraska?