This November, California voters get their first chance in more than three decades to abolish capital punishment.
California’s death penalty will itself be marched to the gallows if supporters of Proposition 34 can capture enough votes in November.
If successful, the repeal will be a monumental victory for opponents who’ve sought to abolish capital punishment for more than three decades.
Instead of playing the philosophical moral card, supporters of Prop. 34 — officially known as the “Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act” — ask voters to consider the financial burden the death penalty places on the state.
According to SAFE California, a coalition formed to abolish capital punishment in the state, efforts to enforce the death penalty have cost state taxpayers more than $4 billion since 1978.
The cost of a single death penalty case can run into the millions due to lengthy post-trial proceedings that involve a whole lot of legal support — all paid by the government.
Prop. 34 supporters say they’d like to see the money saved go into solving crimes instead. Even California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, who estimates he voted to uphold more than 200 death sentences during his decade of service, is backing the November ballot measure. He told SFGate:
“…there’s no chance California’s death penalty can ever be fixed. The millions wasted on this broken system would be much better spent keeping teachers, police and firefighters on their jobs.”
Opponents, though, say eliminating the death penalty would be unjust to the victims.
The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims rights organization, has petitioned to remove the proposal from the November ballot. CJLF President Michael Rushford told the Ex:
“The supporters of Proposition 34 sympathize with the murderers. The victims are somewhat down on their priority scale.”
If approved, Prop. 34 would convert the death sentences of California’s 725 death row inmates into life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The arguments in support of the ballot measure to abolish the death penalty are exaggerated at best and, in most cases, misleading and erroneous. It includes provisions that would only make our prisons less safe for both other prisoners and prison officials and significantly increase the costs to taxpayers due to life-time medical costs, the increased security required to coerce former death-row inmates to work, etc. The amount “saved” in order to help fund law enforcement is negligible and only for a short period of time. Bottom line, the “SAFE” Act is an attempt by those who are responsible for the high costs and lack of executions to now persuade voters to abandon it on those grounds. Obviously, these arguments would disappear if the death penalty was carried forth in accordance with the law. Get the facts at and supporting evidence at http://cadeathpenalty.webs.com and http://waiting4justice.org/.