| Measure has broad support from unlikely sources
by Brian Leubitz
Since 2000, we have executed a total of 6 murderers in California=CA&sex_1=All&federal=All&foreigner=All&juvenile=All&volunteer=All]. The last of those was a 76 year old man in 2006. Since then, for a variety of reasons we have had no executions. But meanwhile we have been warehousing criminals at the exorbitant costs for death row.
And now it appears that the voters of California will have another decision point on the death penalty in November:
For the third time in 40 years, Californians will likely vote in November on the death penalty, a practice that has had at least as much impact on the state's politics as on its institutions of crime and punishment.
Opponents of capital punishment said Thursday they were submitting 800,000 signatures on petitions for an initiative to close the nation's largest Death Row, which has 725 condemned prisoners. The measure needs 504,760 valid signatures to make the ballot.
"California voters are ready to replace the death penalty with life in prison with no chance of parole," declared Jeanne Woodford, who oversaw four executions as warden of San Quentin State Prison. She now heads the anti-capital-punishment group Death Penalty Focus. ([SF Chronicle
Along with Woodford, the initiative also has the support of Ron Briggs, the author of the death penalty initiative in 1978 that reinstated the punishment. And as he said in the LA Times on Feb 12, the death penalty "simply does not work":
The ineffective legal beast created by California's death penalty laws costs taxpayers more than $100 million annually and ties up the lives of prosecutors and victims who could be moving on to other things.
We thought our 1978 initiative created a system to support victims' families. It didn't. The only people benefiting today are the lawyers who handle expensive appeals and the criminals who are able to keep their cases alive interminably.
The Briggs death penalty law in California simply does not work.
Perhaps this time we can take one step towards a humane state while also addressing our fiscal concerns. |
