Los Angeles County has become America's new capital punishment capital. With 13 death sentences in 2009, LA County alone sent more people to death than the entire state of Texas -- or any other state for that matter.

Those death sentences come at an enormous cost. The ACLU estimates that each trial seeking death in California costs $1.1 million more than a trial seeking life without the possibility of parole, paid for entirely by the county. LA has spent $68.2 million on death sentences since 2000, and $14.3 million last year alone. That could have also funded 185 homicide investigators or 223 high school teachers.

But most counties in California and across the nation no longer use the death penalty. In fact, only 10 percent of American counties have issued a single death sentence in the last six years.

it's time for Los Angeles to join the rest of the state and nation by letting the death penalty go the way of the Governator. There's no reason for LA County to pump millions into this failed government bureaucracy when most of the state and 90 percent of American counties get along just fine without it. Take action now and tell DA Cooley to put an end to death sentencing in Los Angeles.

Photo Credit: Marshall Astor