Community Commentary:

Serial killer Rodney James Alcala was sentenced to death two weeks ago. This is the third time in 30 years an Orange County jury has sentenced him to die for the murder and rape of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. He has been in prison since 1979 and, if California death row statistics hold, he’ll be waiting at least another 18 years before running through his latest set of appeals.

The staggering delays in California’s capital punishment system would be comical if not so tragic. With the annual Victims March on the Capitol later this month, it begs the question, what are we doing, as policy makers, to ensure there is closure and justice for the victims, not just the condemned?

The will of the voters is sacrosanct when a liberal agenda is at stake.

Mounting budget deficits demand drastic spending cuts yet lawmakers shield K-12 spending — more than 40% of the California budget — by pointing to the voter passed Proposition 98 as evidence that cutting education funding would betray the will of the public.

Clearly protecting public education is important, and the voters’ will should be honored, but shouldn’t the will of the voters be honored equally on other policies? Somehow the rationale used to justify school spending does not extend to voter-approved policies such as capital punishment or Three Strikes.

It is perplexing, indeed, to consider that in a state where 67% of registered voters support the death penalty; 72% of voters enacted the death penalty through direct democracy; and 55% of Democrats favor the death penalty, that the entire system is poised to “collapse under its own weight.” Legislators are content to watch quietly as a popularly approved system grows more and more dysfunctional.

Those of us who have lived in California a while remember infamous murderers such as Laurence Bittaker, sentenced to death in 1983 for killing five women; or Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, sitting on death row since 1989 for killing at least 13 people.

That men like Bittaker and Ramirez have not yet received the lawful punishment pronounced upon them by a judge and jury almost 30 years ago is an appalling miscarriage of justice.