Opinion: A brief note on California’s new death chamber

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I don’t usually make absurd comparisons just to score political points (e.g., ‘We landed a man on the moon, but we still can’t create biodegradable Styrofoam,’ or ‘We can fight two wars, but we’re laying off teachers’). But I had the kind of visceral reaction to Wednesday’s Times story on California’s new death chamber that immediately produces such observations. So here goes: California doesn’t have a budget, its universities and schools are starving for funds, and our unemployment rate is cripplingly high -- but have you seen our state-of-the-art execution gurney?

Plus, this whole affair strikes me shamefully medieval: We’ve used prison labor to build a gleaming new death chamber to carry out what will almost surely be just a handful of executions before the practice is put to death for good. The facility cost the state a relative pittance -- $853,000 -- to build, but I still want my money back.

-- Paul Thornton