More significantly, says the Death Penalty Information Center in its annual report on capital punishment, the number of new death sentences being imposed is also relatively low; at 42 sentences this year, it’s the third-lowest since capital punishment was reinstated. And more than half of those came in just four states, including — to our shame — here in California, the state with the largest death row in the nation and a system so dysfunctional that federal courts have refused to let corrections officials used the death chamber in San Quentin for more than a decade. Five more people were sentenced to death in California this year.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 14, 2018 11:03 UTC