New Orleans DA Wants to Keep Death Penalty:  Although there has not been a execution in New Orleans in 12 years, DA Leon Cannizzaro still believes it should be enforced according to this story by Gwen Filosa of The Times-Picayune. Cannizzaro, elected DA last fall after serving as a judge for 22 years, has failed to secure death sentences in the nation's murder capital for pre-Katrina murder cases, but his office is continuing to seek the ultimate punishment in cases involving the city's worst killers.  Kerry Cuccia, director of the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, does not think that "there is any reason to believe that Orleans Parish jurors are any more reluctant to give a death sentence than in any other parish. It's a case-by-case basis."

Another Money Saving Inmate Release Plan: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Secretary of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Matt Cate, is proposing that the state's prison population be cut by up to 8,000 inmates to save scarce tax dollars, according to this Sacramento Bee story by writer Andy Furillo.  The plan calls for slicing four months off sentences for participation in job or education programs, loosening parole requirements, and doubling the dollar limit for grand theft to reduce the number of thieves sent to prison.  Assemblyman Jim Nielson, who served eight years as Chairman of the Board of Prison Terms, said the release will result in "chaos in the streets" and called the change in grand theft "indexing criminality."