California decision to ban death penalty to be on ballot

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
4/25/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

If approved, 725 death row prisoners will have sentences converted to life in prison

The death penalty is a fact of modern life that is frequently a topic of debate. Now, voters in California will have the chance to cast ballots on a referendum on ending the death penalty this coming November. If the measure is approved, the 725 California inmates on Death Row will have their sentences converted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

If the measure is approved, the 725 California inmates on Death Row will have their sentences converted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The "Savings, Accountability and Full Enforcement for California Act," or SAFE California Act will now be considered on November 6, Debra Bowen California's Secretary of State said.

Supporters collected more than the 504,760 valid signatures needed to place the measure on the ballot.

If approved, it will make life without parole the harshest penalty California prosecutors can seek.

Supporters of the measure say that abolishing the death penalty would save the state millions of dollars through layoffs of prosecutors and defense lawyers who handle death penalty cases. The measure will also save money from not having to maintain the nation's largest death row at San Quentin Prison.

In addition, the $100 million in purported savings from abolishing the death penalty could be utilized to investigate unsolved murders and rapes.

"Our system is broken, expensive and it always will carry the grave risk of a mistake," Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin prison says. Woodford is now an anti-death penalty advocate and an official supporter of the measure.

When the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, "we did not have an alternative sentence that would keep convicted killers behind bars forever. We certainly did not know that we would spend $4 billion on 13 executions," she said in a statement.

If the measure is passed, California would become the 18th U.S. state to eliminate the death penalty.

The measure will also require most inmates sentenced to life without parole to find jobs within prisons. Most death row inmates do not hold prison jobs for security reasons.

California has not put any prisoner to death since 2006, in spite of being one of 35 states that authorize the death penalty. Since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, it has executed 13 inmates.

A 2009 study conducted by a senior federal judge and law school professor concluded that the state was spending about $184 million a year to maintain Death Row and the death penalty system.

The American Civil Liberties Union, who support the measure, are portraying it as a cost-savings measure in a time of political austerity.

They count several prominent conservatives and prosecutors, including the author of the 1978 measure adopting the death penalty, as supporters, and argue that too few executions have been carried out at too great a cost.

� 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: California, death penalty, death row inmates, ballot

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1 - 7 of 7 Comments

Bobby Bristow
10 months ago
simple any one who supports the death penalty is sick and needs counseling
Michael
1 year ago
The death penalty would be a deterrent if it were actually carried out, in a timely manner. I believe that it is immoral to keep someone like Charles Manson alive, given the atrocity of his crime. At what level of murder is it acceptable to execute someone? Murdering one person is o.k. but killing over 160, as Tim McVey did, should result in the death penalty? Would it have been o.k. to keep Adolf Hitler in prison for life? Or Sadam Hussien? Back east, in some state without the death penalty, the two murderers of the two daughters and thieir mother, after raping the 3 of them repeatedly, while their father/husband was forced to watch, then setting the victims on fire to burn down the house in hopes of destroying forensic evidence; These animals shoud be allowed to live? I think that's immoral. Catholicism taught me that when you sin, and last time I checked, the Hebrew text of the Tem Commandments forbids murder. (Not killing.), you also sin against the community as well as God. I think that, especially in the case of murder, the ultimate debt to society is owed.
elcid
1 year ago
@techwreck - you obviously do not know your history, the Catholic Church has always stated that capital punishment is NOT intrinsically evil like abortion or euthanasia and so may be permitted by the state, the fact that liberal catholics are for abortion or support it by voting for democrats but yet cry out about capital punishment is the real collective insanity you mention, as for the cost and whether this deters crime, well the issue may be related to the fact that after someone is convicted of a capital crime it takes the state years to carry it out, which incurs the cost of maintaining someone in the penal system, lawyers, etc., not to mention the perception to would be capital criminals that they don't have to worry about the death penalty.
Helen Hawkins
1 year ago
I have always opposed the death penalty. Not for the sake of the accused but for the sake of those who are responsible for the execution itself, for the sake of society and for the sake of the family of the accused.

It is a poor excuse however, to point out the inconsistancy of accepting capital punishing but rejecting abortion. The accused has had his or her day in court. The innocent child has no voice. The innocent child is condemned to die without a day in court - without hope in fighting an implacable cruel and unjust law.
Rob
1 year ago
Tech, you are exactly right. What will surely follow our comments is this very technical discussion of vatican pronoucements defending the practice. I think this issue provides so much confusion to a public trying to understand where the Catholic church is coming from on issues of life. I think this is another example of politics being mixed with faith to a degree that you just have a bad answer....Catholics voting for pro-life politicians and pro-life people supporting the death penalty and war.
techwreck
1 year ago
The death penalty is the best example of our country's collective insanity, as well as a good example of Catholics' selective support of only the teachings of the Church with which they agree. .... Our country favors the death penalty and thus politicians support it despite the fact that there is no conclusive proof that it deters crime, and despite the fact that it is more expensive than a sentence of life imprisonment without a possibility of parole. .... The Church teaches that the death penalty is wrong if the public can be protected from convicted criminals by other means (like a sentence of life imprisonment without a possibility of parole), yet a substantial percentage of self-described Catholics still support the death penalty. .... Jesus, forgive us. We know not what we do!
Harold Olsen
1 year ago
California is one of the most liberal states in the union so this ban on the death penalty will most likely pass with an overwhelming majority. If an initiative to ban abortion were put on the ballot, it would most likely fail overwhelmingly. Liberals oppose the killing of criminals but are okay with the murder of innocent babies in the womb. Ironic and hypocritical.

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