In any society, people kill people. And throughout history, the popular response has been to kill the people who kill people. In California’s recession and budget crisis, our first instinct is to cut programs that have little practical significance. Proposition 34 is certainly slave to this instinct.

Prop. 34 proposes an end to the death penalty in California. Since death penalty cases use specialized courts and attorneys, the state could benefit financially from their elimination. However, Death Row and its associated courts have something more: moral significance. People related to murder victims deserve to see people who killed their people killed.

The issue is not deterrence, or cost, but rather the need to preserve a particular moral voice in society. The death penalty is a pillar of that moral voice, which is why we need to keep it at all costs.

Related: Death, food and taxes: A trio of moral dilemmas faces California in propositions