E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSCalifornia voters will decide whether to abolish the death penalty this November, the Silicon Valley Mercury News reported. A group in favor of doing away with the nation’s largest death row gathered more than 800,000 signatures –- enough to put capital punishment on the ballot.
Death would be replaced with life in prison without possibility of parole, according to the Mercury News. Inmates currently on death row would live out life in prison instead.
"It's a proposition whose time has come," measure proponent Jeanne Woodford, a former San Quentin State Prison warden, told reporters Monday morning, according to the Mercury News.
Abolishing the death penalty could save California tens of millions of dollars, which could be redirected to solving rape and murder cases, Woodford said. Woodford, who oversaw four executions as warden, now heads Death Penalty Focus, which opposes the death penalty.
The measure is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and some law enforcement and victims rights groups, the Sacramento Bee reported.
The death penalty was reinstated in California in 1978. Since then, 13 people have been executed, according to Death Penalty Focus. The Los Angeles Times reported that $4 billion has been spent to administer capital punishment –- about $308 million per execution.
California has been moving in this direction for several years. In 2006, a U.S. District Court judge halted all executions out of concern that they resulted in unnecessary pain, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In December, a Superior Court judge rejected the state’s new lethal injection protocols because officials hadn’t considered a one-drug method used in other states.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Zimmerman released on bail in Martin shooting case
- Five big questions as the John Edwards trial starts
- $60 light bulb cut for Earth Day — to $25
- Triple digit temps in Southwest — in April!
- Tsunami sign: Soccer ball washes ashore in Alaska
Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook
Leave a Comment:
At $35,000 per YEAR to feed and house a "regular" inmate (more if they nees single cell because they killed their "cellie") and--yes that's MORE than many people make in a whole year!! Times that by 50 YEARS for life without (assuming they got sentenced by age 20) the death peanlity is a bargain. OH ya and the geratric care when they reach the advanced age---a wheel chair, a personal assistant, special food and LOTS of medication. Then add in the court fees for their suits against the state---the broken cookie deprived the inmate of proper "nutrition" and so forth.
As to the "cost" of an execution---it's not the the drugs--IT'S THE LAWYERS AND THE APPEALS that add up.
My nephew is a Corrections Officer. The cost to house an inmate today is 50K.
Something really important that does not happen?
How about requiring Voters to Vote?
Who knows maybe Voters to requiring Voters not Vote?
This is the big moral issue of the day, think ahead, the day after the next election, we can start a new election?
One of my favorites about the death penalty...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgQRgT15f9U
Over 300 million to execute one guy... WTF.. Push his a$$ off a building... Free... I'll volunteer... If you are such an animal that you can no longer be trusted in society... kill them please. Televise it and absorb the cost with pay-per-view.
where are you going to keep all of the @!$%#UPS with the overcrowding.....Maybe the libs can have an ADOPT A KILLER program and they could have the prisoners live in the libs homes and they can REHIBILATE them...GOOD IDEA HUH
With all the money they save by cutting education.. they can build more club feds.
Thats actually another good idea Jon. Fund raise to save a killer thats been proven guilty without doubt. If you manage to find enough ppl to raise the funds, you get to house the killer and try to rehabilitate him or her. Great IDea! Some tax money saved and the ppl that feel killers dont deserve death get to personally see whether or not this person was worth the effort or not. If they are right they saved a life, if they are wrong they get what they deserve. Perfert. LOL
What makes it so expensive is all of the appeals. The costs of the lawyers and the court costs are extreme. I agree they should be allowed 1 appeal, maybe 2. But once that final appeal is denied they should go strait to the chamber. It is ridiculous how people believe these convicted murderers and rapists should be given all these rights. When you take someone else's rights away, you just forfeited your own.
I agree. The whole appeal process needs to be streamlined or limited. That is where your expense is.
they should just get a nice rope, and a very strong tree and hang them. it would not cost very much and if it did i could do it for nothing at all.
Great!
But, lets work on voting abortion out!
Abortion... you save them, you raise them.
I wonder how many of the signers lost a loved one to a torturous murderer who delighted in their suffering.
Why not abolish the judicial system and all law enforcement? Then there would be no death penalty no pain and no costs to the taxpayer.
Your wife / Mother / daughter / child is raped, sodimized and murdered by a gang of men. Now you tell me that you would just to the people who did this say "OK you can live out your life in lavishment in a prison and laugh at you every day of your life". Come on ACLU members tell me honestly that is how you feel and I'll send your address to all of the LA gangs. By the way I am a died in the wool liberal democrat.
so lets get this striaght,they want too do away with death pentatly.and the money saved could be re-focused too solve more rape and murder crimes,witch by the way are both punishable through the death pentatly.now aint that a oxy moron,and how foolish too just spend another 600 billion on bigger prisons,too save 40 billion.witch comes too roughly about 10 or 11 murderes and rapest killed over a 15 yr period,wow what idiot came up with this,had to be some narrow minded dogmatic veiw from a religous group,what do they say,only god can determine who lives or dies,well the p.o.s who raped and killed my young daughter desided her fate.so we shall determine his,and its death.perhaps we could do away with it,if you can talk your god into getting off his lazy ass and doing something more about the evil of man,till then step off ya bleeding hearts
Eliminate the death penalty??? Are you freakin' kidding me? How about streamlining the process so it doesn't take 50 years to execute scumbags like Charles Ng, Cary Stayner, and the likes. That's why it's so damn expensive. I love California. I lived here my entire life and always will. But we have way too many idiot whacko's running this state. They just don't get it. I am at the point where I'm embarrassed to even tell people who are out of state where I live. And don't even get me started on illegal immigration!!!
Cmon' California... It's time to start getting tougher on crime. Not softer. WAKE UP DAMNIT!!!!
I will vote yes on this. Killing people sets a bad example.
...and because these criminals are setting a bad example, we need to kill them in return.
They're all INNOCENT according to them.....More than likely If they were convicted unfairly they probably were never charged or caught for something else they did.....These guys were not UPSTANDING CITIZENS in the first place....I know I would rather be DEAD than spending the rest of my life in jail...If you call that life.....Why don't you sponsor one or more of them....I mean the ones that are INNOCENT........Wrong place' wrong time, previous trouble with the law......ON and ON and ON.........I gotta say ....SCREW EM
about $308 million per execution. I will do it for free and will bring my own gun and ammo. I think using my money tax money on keeping those criminals in prison for life is a cruel and unusual punishment toward me. everyday when they still alive little of my soul dies.
damn....you mean to tell me white on black killers wont get the death penalty.
It is not barbaric to execute a human being who has committed an act(s) that has devastated the lives of many people. Some people should not be allowed to exist in this world. When I meet kind, wonderful individuals that make this world great, I know in my heart that it is just right to eliminate those who commit disgusting crimes against us. We have a duty to protect other human beings, yes – even those who may share a cell with the deviant.
Hello, amvet. My response is intended with sincere respect.
IN THEORY, I agree with you. There are certain people who are simply too deviant/evil/ dangerous to live in a civilized society, and we should have the right to protect ourselves from them. As a lifetime CA resident, though, I have mixed feelings about this bill, and still haven't decided how to vote. Here's why:
Unless a convict confesses, how can we possibly know whether or not s/he is truly guilty? There are too many cases of overzealous law enforcement under pressure to solve a crime, of witnesses who may be well-intentioned (or not) yet give erroneous information, of mix-ups in labs... In other words, how often can we really be 100% certain?
There's a man who's been on death row in CA since 1985. I've had some interest in the case because the murders occurred about two miles from where I now live and there's a certain amount of local lore about it. Thing is, based on what I've read, I have serious doubts that they got the right guy. No matter how strongly the prosecutors state their case, too many things just don't add up. The murders were unspeakable -- children were among the victims -- and it's understandable that the families and general public would scream for justice. If it was certain this guy was guilty, I'd say no punishment was bad enough, but with the evidence the way it is...? No way. If the man is ever executed, I'll be deeply disturbed.
The problem as I see it, as others have pointed out, is that our justice system is just too flawed -- too full of ego and grandstanding among attorneys and law enforcement, too prone to human error -- to be reliable.
I don't have answers... just observations. Thank you for sharing yours.
This is the same state with marijuana vending machines. No wonder nobody takes California seriously.
We all are killers if we allow society to kill. We are all responsible for the killing of a person on Death Row. I for one do not believe in killing a human being, I do not want to be responsible for killing someone, let the "killer" die in prison. Prison is like death. I am ashamed for the people who want to kill, I am your next door friend, I am your mother, your best friend, or spiritual leader. Is this how you want to live? People killing each other? Killing must end somehow. Let it start with each and everyone of us. Now is the time.
California voters did have their say several years ago, And we voted in favor of the death penalty. They still would not do it here. Now they want to re vote the thing again.
If the right to lifers dont get what they want they will just litigate it again and again and will still wont do what the people want.
As usual a minority group wants to speak for all.
300 Mil for an execution????? Your kidding me.... Back in the old days it was ended with a 5 man firing squad.... or a rope..... and probably cost 5-10 bucks total.... wtf has this country gone too????
states would save tons of money on state executions if they would just reinstate hanging and a plain pine coffin.
BRING BACK THE HANGING TREE !!!!!
This is the work of Obama. Clear and simple. Oh and Jews and mexicans. You can't trust any of them.
You are being sarcastic...right Gandi???Please tell me so!
There will be some layoffs if you have the death penalty. I have a friend who works for the prison whose job is refered to as the CUM VALET.....His job is to go by the cells and dispense towels to the male inmates so they have a clean towel to MASTURBATE in..so they don't get there cells all sticky.......There's a job for a LIBERAL....nobody hands me towels in my home......I wonder what services they offer for female inmates....Fresh batteries for their dildos........SICK HUH..But it is the real deal....WE ALL PAY FOR
Jon, is this really what you worry about? Sad!