KTVU Fox 2: Santa Clara County DA moves to take 15 convicted men off death row
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen on Friday made public his decision to begin changing the sentences of 15 men from death to life behind bars with no chance of parole.
"The question is not whether these 15 human beings deserve the death penalty," Rosen said. "It’s whether the two million people of Santa Clara County deserve the indignity and ineffectiveness of the death penalty. It’s an antiquated, racially biased, error-prone system that deters nothing and costs us millions of public dollars and our integrity as a community that cherishes justice."
He added: "Judges and juries of the People should decide where an inmate dies. God should decide when."
The move comes four years after Rosen stopped charging the death penalty, a decision he said he made in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and a trip to Montgomery, Alabama with his synagogue and a church group.