Voters in California, with more prisoners on death row than any other US state, will reconsider the use of capital punishment 40 years after it was first approved by two-thirds of the electorate.
Advocates of the initiative, which would change the maximum criminal penalty from execution to life in prison without the possibility of parole, had gathered enough signatures to place the issue before voters in the November election, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said on Monday in a statement.
If approved, California would join 17 states that exclude the practice, including New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Illinois, all of which have abolished the death penalty since 2007.
In November last year, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber said he would no longer allow executions during his term because of moral objections.
A bill to eliminate capital punishment has also been approved by both legislative chambers in Connecticut.
“It is hard to overstate the significance of this decision,” said Jeanne Woodford, the legal sponsor of the initiative, who oversaw executions as warden of San Quentin State Prison. “California voters will, for the first time, be able to vote on replacing the death penalty with life in prison with no possibility of parole.”
California had 723 inmates on death row as of Jan. 1, according to data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment. While two-thirds of voters approved the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1972, the state has not conducted executions since 2006, when a federal judge halted them because of concerns that the procedure, using lethal injection, was unconstitutionally cruel.
Nationally, the number of executions dropped to 43 last year from a peak of 98 in 1999, according to the Washington-based death penalty center.
California has spent about US$4 billion on the punishment since voters expanded the scope of the death penalty in 1978, according to a Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review study last year by Judge Arthur Alarcon, of the US Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and Paula Mitchell, a Loyola professor.
In a report on the proposed ballot measure in October last year, the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office concluded that repealing the death penalty would save the state and counties in the “high tens of millions of dollars” a year.
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death-penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, said reports of significant savings were speculative and did not factor in costs such as health care for aging inmates.
“The savings they are promising are not real,” Scheidegger said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “The people of California have consistently supported the death penalty.”
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS