Life 

Editor:

Regardless of where you stand on capital punishment, the statistics pertaining to California's exercising of the punishment are rather sobering ("A Capital Question," March 20). Considering that nearly 60 percent of those who have died on death row since 1978 have done so via natural causes, these individuals essentially served a "life without the possibility of parole" sentences.

Given the exorbitant expenditures exhausted on the death penalty and the rather staid outcome, it seems that one can realize the ultimate objective (death) by sentencing all those convicted of capital crimes to life without the possibility of parole. Q.E.D.

Michael Sanders, Arcata