When Tuesday's hearings in Sacramento on proposed changes in California's method of executing convicted murderers veered into a discussion of why solutions to the state's budget crisis ought to include the abolition of capital punishment, it was another example of how divided our attitude on this issue remains.

In fact, if you look back through this vexed issue's history here, what emerges clearly is a deep ambivalence -- a popular unwillingness to renounce the death penalty as a symbol of the state's ultimate sanction against criminality, and a persistent current of reluctance to see it imposed too frequently. It's that division that sets California apart from most other capital punishment states.

The death penalty was first incorporated into California's penal code early in 1872, and, from the language of the statute, it's clear that one of the lawmakers' primary concerns was to keep their state's executions from turning into the kinds of public spectacles that still were common across the country.

"A judgment of death must be executed within the walls or yard of a jail, or some convenient private place in the county. The sheriff of the county must be present at the execution, and must invite the presence of a physician, the district attorney of the county, and at least 12 reputable citizens, to be selected by him; and he shall at the request of the defendant, permit such ministers of the gospel, not exceeding two, as the defendant may name, and any persons, relatives or friends, not to exceed five, to be present at the execution, together with such peace officers as he may think expedient, to witness the execution. But no other persons than those mentioned in this section can be present at the execution, nor can any person under age be allowed to witness the same."

There are no reliable statistics on how many such county executions were carried out, but in 1891, the law was amended to require that all hangings be done at either San Quentin or Folsom prisons. Over the next 46 years, 307 people were hanged at one or another of the prisons, or just slightly more than six prisoners per year, a stunningly low total for what was a fairly bloodthirsty period in the history of American criminal justice.