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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 $308 million per execution.
California has been moving in this direction for several years. In 2006, a U.S. District Court judge halted all executions out of concern that they resulted in unnecessary pain, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In December, a Superior Court judge rejected the state’s new lethal injection protocols because officials hadn’t considered a one-drug method used in other states.
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Why would it cost 308 million for each execution? Also it says there have been 13 since 1978. I agree to end them, it is wrong.
What...again? How about if we just start carrying out the sentences instead?
California may just as well abolish the death penalty, with the largest death-row population and only 13 executions in the past 34 years it is pretty much a life sentence already in California..... Texas executes almost that many every year it seems
Execute them and send Soylent Green to starving nations instead of money...
I would think it would be more of a punishment for a criminal to rot away in jail for the rest of his or her life than to be spared a quick death.
The only bad thing about the Death Penalty, is that it takes too long, one appeal then kill them, it cruel, to make them wait so long, kill them as fast as you can and it will free up space in the prisons! All this other bull @!$%#, like the Miranda rights or illegal search and seizure, did the Victim that was killed have all these rights, I think not!!
I hope you get accused of something you didn't do, Steve. LOLOLOLOLOL!!!
I think every state should start inforcing the death penalty, we pay thousands of tax dollars to feed all these murders every year and its time to cut that budget! If we start inforcing the death penalty and be hard then the crime rates will drop! people are not afraid to go to prison because they got a free life no bills!!!!!! come on america lets start cracking down and help get the country back together!!! we are too soft and that is why america is going down the tubes!
California did abolish the death penalty until Charles Manson's family went helter-skelter... I wonder if there will be a copy cat Manson family if they do abolish it. After all if history has taught us anything it is that we are excellent at repeating mistakes .
If they're not going to use it, why even have it ? The costs for appeals for death penalty sentences DO run into the millions, and this is per inmate. And we the taxpayers end up paying for both sides of the case. The costs for keeping an inmate on "Death Row" DO run into the millions, and there again, we end up paying the extra costs. I don't think there have been "countless" innocent people executed. The records indicate that over the last 150 years that there may have been 8 innocent people executed. I personally think that's 8 too many, but I also think that if there is absolutely no doubt about the person's guilt, and I mean NONE, and if the person is given the death penalty, give them their one appeal and if nothing has changed, do it and get it over with.
and you do not think that all these guys do not appeal if they are only going to serve life?
If they would let us, the other 49 states would overwhelmingly vote to give California to the Mexico!
They both deserve each other!
Not Hawaii or Oregon. They don't want the border problems!
Crashrandy, with an estimated four million illegal immigrants living in California presently, Mexico has pretty much retaken it.
How can Hawaii have a border problem?
Let's see.. we want to not kill convicted murders, rapists, child molesters.. but lets keep on torturing and murdering hundreds of innocent children daily because women should have a "Choice". Real consistent California!
The monsters who go along with this thinking are every bit as bad as Hitler and his NAZI party or Joe Stalin or Caligula. You are all morally bankrupt!
Again.. you save them, you raise them.. you will have taken the moral high ground but will be monetarily bankrupt.
So you justify the torture and murder of children for the sake of economy... just like Hitler!
What is more torturous, ending a life prior to birth or having it grow up in a home that did not want it and spend life being abused. How are you defining torture. Fine line between torture and compassion.
Either you can not find a way to continue this argument intelligently or you are trying to find some clever way to throw in another Hitler reference. Don't go getten a brain hernia now. I shall cede. lol
Hitler killed the mentally infirm, babies with deformities, or the homeless for the very same reasons you dictate. Nothing says that a child WILL be abused and that argument falls flat because of all the other children who are abused. Should they be killed as well? Maybe we should kill the abuser, not the abusee.
Compassion is not murder. Why is it compassionate to do away with the death penalty and compassionate to torture then kill a baby. You Liberals have no sense of morality.
Hitler had millions of people murdered because it was compassionate to do so. His argument in 1933 was the same as yours.
Maybe the rationale is "No babies, no child abuse".
Hitler had it out for an entire sect and he had underlying motives so your argument is too generalized to merit any strength. The children who grow up in unwanted homes with usually one parent that depends on social services are better off. I challenge you to work with a meth-addicted child. The one I took care of was a ward of the court, mom in prison, dad unknown, and the child had a lifetime of meds to take. At the age of three the meds were adult strength. Not all children end up this way but they do when mom is not given a choice. It is easy to judge from the passenger seat... try driving for a bit.
What is this? You all want to kill each other and call each other names no matter what side your on. Where is your proper judgement on this issue. The word should be "support this cause, or I'll kill you". Such mentality.
Also can you show with numbers which is least expense, Death row, or life in prison? None of you have shown which really is cheaper in the long run. Maybe we should just let them rot in cells for about 3 months then test them, send them out for beach life and picnics. If they pass the test, send them home. That will teach us all,both sides of the question. In the meantime, I'm voting to kill the varmints. String em hang em, boil them, we don't miss many real innocent ones on Death Row.
lmfao.....no death for white men who kill black men.
especially white men who kill black panthers!
lmfao!
Why does California continue to do STUPID things that go against common sense?
It does NOT cost zillions of dollars to put someone to death. What costs so much is the ridiculous appeals that go on and on and on and on, while they CONTINUE to be in jail forever.
Well NUTTY California, put this next to: Marrying two men/two women and let's give ILLEGAL immigrants education via the tax payers dollars.
When does the NONSENSE stop?!! Please tell me !
What do you mean ROT...Three meals a day ...Climate control..Dental medical eyeglasses..Gymnasiums ,sports,weightlifting.basketball,football,baseball.....cable tv ..library....social visits....CLUBS aka GANGS..DRUGS, SEX, never ending EDUCATION....They have no utility bills ,insurance bills, car payments.....Just not the freedom on the outside.....They can still Fight ,steal,rape and KILL and they don;t have to worry about going to JAIL....THEY"RE ALREADY THERE.........They are LOSERS........Always were and always will be......IF anyone out there thinks that there is rehabilitation they are SADLY MISTAKEN........IT's a life style and they learn to love it or they wouldn't repeat and GO BACK
Yes, all those things you list are provided -- which is ridiculous -- yet still, a family member of mine who was incarcerated (for a minor crime) called collect one night BEGGING us to get him out. He was terrified, and although he's now a stable, productive, loving family man, the memory of that call still haunts me.
It's not a bed of roses in there. And you're wrong that there's no rehabilitation -- although the system doesn't provide it. The person him/herself does, if they want it badly enough. Sometimes it's a matter of getting clean -- I've seen many people turn their lives around by getting off the meth. Makes all the difference in the world for those strong enough to do it. I'm not talking about serial violent criminals, though; I'm talking about the majority of the prison population -- the ones you're prepared to write off as "losers". It's not nearly as clear-cut as you think.
Are there that many stupid people in California to want to pay for these animals to live? I'm sick of this government using my tax dollars keeping predators, rapists, murderers and gang members alive! Kill them!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are useless to society!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yes
Homeless people (increasing) will just start killing people to get free room and board.
Well, I think all those who have been on death row for 10 to 20 years ought to be taken off death row, and executed. That would save California the cost of keeping them alive. It would also help reduce the population in the state's overcrowded prisons. I still find the argument against "unnecessary pain" reason to abolish the death penalty -- death hurts! It's supposed to, usually. And that's part of the price those sentenced to death need to pay. Perhaps their victims suffered more. At any rate executions in this country are usually performed quickly. Faster than, oh, being tortured or slowly strangled or hacked to death. The death penalty hardly constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment since it's been imposed for thousands of years in just about every society on earth. Unusual, or uncommon? No. Cruel? As opposed to life imprisonment? Probably not so much.
It would not cost the taxes payer so much to put someone to death if they end the appeals system and start a review board made up of ex judges and Legal professionals to review the trial and vote on whether the person received a fair trial. If they vote that he received a fair trial then they put him to death. If they decide he did not receive a fair trial then he gets a new trial. no more sitting on death row for 30 years playing the system. And wit hall of the over crowding in prison that a lot more humane then life in prison. In fact they should expand the death penatly to Rapist, child molesters, drug trafficers and drug dealers. Then there would be a lot more room in the prison system and whole lot less repeat offenders on the street.
Oh please not again!!!! We did this under justice rose bird and it didn't work.
With the recent improvements in forensic science/ DNA, executing an innocent person would be nearly impossible. Just limit the appeal process.
Some of you are definitely NOT qualified to serve on a jury.
When I was a kid, I remember seeing a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The plot was, Bugs was "offended" at having a "low" bounty on his head, when other forest creatures had "high" bounties.
So what he did was create havoc all over the place to increase his bounty. One of the things that Bugs did was take a saw and cut the state of Florida at the northern border and after cutting, we saw Florida float away from the US.
Well, Bugs where are you when we need you. I say we need Bugs back to get work on California. I would even supply the saw.
Funny thing, I know 2 of the folks on death row in California (from my time as a cop working there) BOTH want the death penalty, they do not want to spend DECADES sitting in a cell waiting to die. Both waived appeals but were DENIED that 'right' by their automatically appointed attorneys.
Why not offer the CHOICE to the defendant?
BTW one of the guys was a lumberjack, spent his entire life outside in the woods. After he brutally executed two people he did not want to participate in his trial nor even really defend himself. But the system will not ALLOW this type of conduct (to plead guilty with the DP). Kinda silly when you think about it.
Typical California. Still waiting for the big one to send all of those losers into the sea. Adios!!!