Prisons in California, one death per week The judges agree: 40 thousand prisoners in freedom

More than 40 000 prisoners could be released from California prisons in the coming months. Not because of an amnesty, or the expiration of their sentence and procedural situation, but thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States. The nine judges of the Court - a majority, 5 against, 4 - have determined that the living conditions in overcrowded and unsanitary prisons are "incompatible with the concept of human dignity." Hence the order to empty them.

California, a black man could be sentenced to death. But perhaps he is innocent

"California could kill an innocent person." I have written five federal judges, paying the ex-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to commute the death sentence of Kevin Cooper, on death row since 1991. Schwarzenegger should grant a pardon before the end of his term, January 3 last year. He did not, passing the grain carefully to his successor, Democrat Jerry Brown.

But the affair Cooper has become one of the thorniest political issues, the emblem of the many evils that afflict the American justice system. In particular, the system of capital punishment. The court case of Kevin Cooper begins with one of the most heinous crimes in the history of the state of California.