Letter to the Editor: Solving crimes more important to victims

December 8, 2007 by Natasha Minsker, San Jose Mercury News

Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr is closing the office's cold case unit (Page 1B, Dec. 3) but continues to pursue expensive death penalty cases. Is this in keeping with the values of Santa Clara voters? The cold case unit solves murders, identifying killers and getting them off the street. It provides justice to victims' families. A death sentence after a person has been identified and caught doesn't change the outcome of the case nor make the community safer: Usually the defendant dies in prison, just as he would if sentenced to life without parole. But the death penalty requires prosecutors and investigators to spend much more time working on the case. If the district attorney pursued life without parole instead of the death penalty, likely she would have the resources needed to keep the cold case unit open.

Natasha Minsker
Death Penalty Policy Director ACLU of Northern California
San Francisco