Our news scan today reports about the difficulties of actually carrying out the death penalty in California.  It refers to capital punishment in the Golden State as an "empty promise," and quotes the ACLU's Natasha Minsker as saying, "There's broad consensus in California that the death penalty is broken."

Somehow, Ms. Minsker forgot to note that the ACLU has been busy as a bee breaking it.

Instead of ending its obstructionist ways, the ACLU recommends the demonstrably unsafe alternative of LWOP, see Allen v. Woodford, 395 F.3d 979 (9th Cir. 2005)(previously convicted killer serving life orchestrated three additional murders from prison).

This is an odd stance for an organization whose opposition to the death penalty stems in large measure from its claimed concern that we might kill the innocent.  It simply refuses to discuss the historical fact that the only legally established killing of the innocent resulted not from the state's imposition of the death penalty, but from its non-imposition.

Still, that isn't the most remarkable thing about the ACLU's stance.  The most remarkable thing is that it bemoans the "empty promise" of the death penalty while, as we speak, doing everything it can to make it even emptier.