SAN DIEGO -- On June 1, John Gardner will be formally sentenced to life in prison for admitting he killed Escondido teenager Amber Dubois and Poway teen Chelsea King.

Gardner's plea agreement took the death penalty off the table and was based partly on the fact that death row inmates are more likely to die of old age than execution.

The state of California has not carried out an execution in four years, even though 20 more inmates are added to death row each year.

Brent King described giving up the option of the death penalty in exchange for Gardner's guilty pleas in the murders of his daughter and Dubois as torturous, but it also made plain sense.

"Most of us realize that a death sentence at this time is a hallow promise in California," said San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.

California has the largest death row in the nation, with 685 men and 17 women. Few are put to death, and of all the inmates who have died on death row, only 18 percent were executed and 82 percent died from natural or other causes.

"It's just a lie, it's just for the birds, the death penalty is, because they don't do nothing about it," said Maria Keever.

She knows firsthand the pain of waiting for a death sentence, as her son Charlie and his friend were tortured and murdered by Scott Erskine 17 years ago. Erskine still sits on death row.

"And now I'm still waiting and I think I will die waiting," Keever said.

In 2006, the state stopped carrying out executions when a federal judge ruled that the protocols for lethal injection at San Quentin were unconstitutional. Since then the prison has built a new lethal injection chamber and created new protocols, but the constitutional challenge continues.

Even before the executions were put on hold, they were infrequent. Only 14 inmates have been executed since 1978.

Dan Lamborn, Chief Deputy District Attorney for San Diego explained, "It takes us five years just to get a defense attorney appointed on the appellate side. Five years for that, which is ridiculous."

Death penalty cases involve automatic drawn-out appeals, a massive amount of paperwork and a shortage of attorneys to handle it.

The King family may feel like they've made a deal with the devil. Announcing it Friday, Brent King admitted, "There is nothing satisfying about this moment."

Still, in giving their blessing to the plea deal the Kings will be spared what families victimized by other criminals are enduring -- a promise of ultimate punishment unfulfilled.

10News learned if the state did away with the death penalty, taxpayers would save about $125 million a year.