California Voters to Choose Between Abolishing the Death Penalty or Speeding Up Executions

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNcsrQgKmjon_NGkfmOwNHcBCVDDMDSRzb_bxvf1m1Kbry3Xd9vj03hY_HROcbgergtl5_ihYkYFxtZr02kSeEmYYkqHgiCgdTAVGD8ZqYdoSlyN0x8ukUr4pVeVvNK7JnAUfI8UMefcU/s1600/san+quentin+new+death+chamber+press+room.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="San Quentin's brand new death chamber" border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNcsrQgKmjon_NGkfmOwNHcBCVDDMDSRzb_bxvf1m1Kbry3Xd9vj03hY_HROcbgergtl5_ihYkYFxtZr02kSeEmYYkqHgiCgdTAVGD8ZqYdoSlyN0x8ukUr4pVeVvNK7JnAUfI8UMefcU/s400/san+quentin+new+death+chamber+press+room.JPG" title="San Quentin's brand new death chamber" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Quentin's brand new death chamber</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">A measure to abolish the death penalty has made it to the November ballot to compete with a measure aiming to increase execution rates.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An initiative that would repeal the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without possibility of parole has qualified for the November ballot, Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced today.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The initiative would apply retroactively to persons already sentenced to death. It would also require prisoners serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for murder to work while in prison.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What backers dubbed as the "Justice That Works Act" required valid signatures from 365,880 registered voters -- 5 % of the total votes cast for governor in the 2014 general election -- to qualify for the ballot, according to Padilla.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Passage of the initiative would result in a net reduction in state and local government costs of potentially around $150 million annually within a few years, according to an analysis conducted by the Legislative Analyst's Office and Department of Finance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Because of all the problems with the death penalty, not a single person has been executed here in the last 10 years. Nonetheless, Californians continue to pay for it in many ways," said initiative proponent Mike Farrell, a longtime death penalty opponent best known for his portrayal of Army Capt. B. J. Hunnicutt on the classic 1972-83 CBS comedy "M.A.S.H."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Whether you look at the death penalty from a taxpayer, a criminal justice or a civil rights perspective, what is clear is that it fails in every respect. We have to do better in California."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An initiative aimed at expediting executions is also expected to appear on the November ballot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Justice is not easy, and it is certainly not gentle. But justice denied is not justice," said Kermit Alexander, the former NFL player who is the proponent of the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act. Alexander's mother, sister and two nephews were murdered in 1984.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We the people of California have consecutively and systematically voted to reinstate and preserve the use of capital punishment despite the efforts of those who refuse to carry out an execution."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Passage of the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act would result in increased state costs that could be in the tens of millions of dollars annually for several years related to direct appeals and habeas corpus proceedings, with the fiscal impact on such costs being unknown in the longer run.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There could also be potential state correctional savings in the tens of millions of dollars annually, according to an analysis conducted by the Legislative Analyst's Office and Department of Finance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the unlikely event both measures were approved by voters, the measure with more yes votes would go into effect.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A measure to repeal the death penalty on the November 2012 ballot was rejected by a 52 % - 48 % margin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: patch.com, June 18, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Abolition California Costs USA California Voters to Choose Between Abolishing the Death Penalty or Speeding Up Executions

San Quentin's brand new death chamber A measure to abolish the death penalty has made it to the November ballot to compete with a measur...

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Notorious killer on California's death row found unconscious in cell, dies

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhC5YjVOrf_eeXvMBiUC0NNZTRoXYtFvXBhvKXYFtmUw_LqljVNiKllZw69ZDB16Ou8FEjEKKApB8D18B5iQrxh6XlV6OsevfnbUnD3oZKliY5Wg2xURrLwW2o536pHVN9HltIYY9hb1w/s1600/Gilbert+Rubio+CAL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Gilbert Rubio " border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhC5YjVOrf_eeXvMBiUC0NNZTRoXYtFvXBhvKXYFtmUw_LqljVNiKllZw69ZDB16Ou8FEjEKKApB8D18B5iQrxh6XlV6OsevfnbUnD3oZKliY5Wg2xURrLwW2o536pHVN9HltIYY9hb1w/s320/Gilbert+Rubio+CAL.jpg" title="Gilbert Rubio " width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gilbert Rubio</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">A notorious killer on San Quentin's death row died after being found unconscious in his cell early Thursday, prison officials said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Marin County coroner will now work to determine how 55-year-old Gilbert Rubio died after correctional officers found him unresponsive during a security check just after 6 a.m.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rubio was sentenced to die on Sept. 20, 2000 for the 1998 murder and robbery of high school vice principal George "Skipper" Blackwell in his Long Beach home.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He was convicted of 1st-degree murder with the special circumstance of robbery and burglary by a Los Angeles County jury.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rubio and 2 others, 59-year-old Monica Chavez and Alex Vega, 61, robbed and bound Blackwell during a home-invasion robbery on Jan. 12, 1998.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During the robbery, Chavez and Vega left the home to cash a $2,000 check written by Blackwell. When his 2 accomplices left, Rubio shot and killed his victim.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chavez was sentenced to life without parole and remains incarcerated at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. Vega was sentenced to life without parole and remains locked up at the California State Prison in Corcoran.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Avoiding execution by perishing from other means is all but certain in San Quentin, the state's only death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since the Legislature re-enacted the death penalty in 1978, 13 inmates have been executed while more than 100 have died from other means.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">No one has been executed at the prison for nearly a decade after U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose ruled the state's protocol for capital punishment was badly flawed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are 747 people on California's death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: sfgate.com, June 17, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

California Natural causes USA Notorious killer on California's death row found unconscious in cell, dies

Gilbert Rubio A notorious killer on San Quentin's death row died after being found unconscious in his cell early Thursday, prison offici...

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Measure to repeal California's death penalty qualifies for the November ballot

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s1600/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="California death row" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s400/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" title="California death row" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">California death row</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">California voters will be asked this fall whether to repeal the state's 38-year-old death penalty, as elections officials announced Friday that an initiative to abolish the law has earned a spot on the Nov. 8 ballot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Backers of the initiative gathered almost 405,000 voter signatures, according to the final tally conducted by county elections officials.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The initiative, championed by former "M*A*S*H" actor Mike Farrell, would eliminate the death penalty for first-degree murder. The most serious punishment would become life in prison without the possibility of parole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That would include the 743 inmates now on death row, the largest condemned population of any U.S. state and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-ln-death-row/" target="_blank">one beset with cases of extreme mental illness </a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Whether you look at the death penalty from a taxpayer, a criminal justice or a civil rights perspective, what is clear is that it fails in every respect," said Farrell in a written statement Friday evening. "We have to do better in California."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only 13 inmates have been executed since the current law was enacted in 1978, with none in the last decade after <a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-me-pol-ca-execution-protocol-20151105-story.html" target="_blank">legal challenges against the execution drugs administered by prison officials </a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The initiative would require mandatory work while behind bars for those convicted of murder, with wages going to debts owed to crime victims.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The independent Legislative Analyst's Office has estimated that in the long run, the ballot measure would reduce state government expenses by as much as $150 million a year, due the elimination of legal challenges to death sentences.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A similar ballot measure, Proposition 34, <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/11/proposition-34-california-death-penalty.html" target="_blank">was defeated by voters </a>in 2012. A <a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-me-ln-death-penalty-ballot-20151030-story.html" target="_blank">pro-death penalty initiative may also appear on the November ballot </a>, after supporters also turned in signatures last month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">November's <a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-pol-ca-november-ballot-measures-20160516-snap-story.html" target="_blank">field of statewide propositions will probably produce the longest statewide ballot since March 2000 </a>. Besides the two death penalty measures, voter signatures on eight other initiatives are now being checked. The deadline for Secretary of State Alex Padilla to certify the list of ballot measures is June 30.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-essential-politics-measure-to-repeal-california-s-death-1466215480-htmlstory.html" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a>, John Myers, June 18, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div>

Abolition California Costs LWOP Mike Farrel USA Measure to repeal California's death penalty qualifies for the November ballot

California death row California voters will be asked this fall whether to repeal the state's 38-year-old death penalty, as elections off...

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A sane approach to dealing with mentally ill death row inmates

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s1600/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="San Quentin's death row" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s400/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" title="San Quentin's death row" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Quentin's death row</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">California's death penalty system has been broken for so long, you could forgive people for thinking that it no longer exists. The last person executed at San Quentin was Clarence Ray Allen, who arranged the murders of 3 people in Fresno - 1 who revealed details of a burglary Allen had planned, and 2 others who testified against him. His January 2006 execution came 23 years after his conviction.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since then, legal challenges have left California without a constitutional method of executing prisoners. The state has proposed a new lethal-injection protocol, but more lawsuits will likely stall the resumption of executions for the foreseeable future, and an initiative headed for the fall ballot would ban it outright. It's unclear how many executions have been forestalled by the freeze. Of 747 people on California's death row - most of them men held at San Quentin - only 18 have exhausted their appeals and could be slated for execution should the "machinery of death," as Justice Harry A. Blackmun once described it, ever be turned back on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We hope it won't be. The result of a too-easily manipulated system, the practice is barbaric, immoral and applied disproportionately to people of color. As Paige St. John reported recently in our news pages, there also are many condemned prisoners in California who can't legally be put to death. The Supreme Court has held that the state can't execute someone who doesn't have a "rational understanding" of why he or she is about to be executed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state historically has argued that it could not acquiesce in removing a convicted killer from death row unless it believed there was a miscarriage of justice. And the mental state of a condemned person does not become a legal issue until execution is near, in part because many forms of mental illness come and go.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But now, under an agreement worked out with the state-funded office that coordinates death sentence appeals, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris has taken the unusual step of joining the defense in asking the state Supreme Court to invalidate the death sentence of Ronnie McPeters. McPeters, a panhandler convicted of the 1984 murder of Linda Pasnick in Fresno, converses with a nonexistent wife and children, hoards his feces and says he's tormented by the voices of his victim's relatives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One inmate continually bangs his head against the wall, believes he is controlled by computer chips and says he dies every night only to be reborn [every day].</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though we wish that Harris, who personally opposes the death penalty, would use this opportunity to make a broader call for its abolition, we welcome her efforts to move inmates such as McPeters off death row. Working with defense lawyers to identify those ineligible for the death penalty earlier in the appeals process keeps the state from wasting time and resources pursuing executions that are constitutionally barred from occurring. No public interest is served by the state doggedly fighting a battle it knows it can't win, and we hope the state Supreme Court affirms this new process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What depths of insanity are involved here? One inmate continually bangs his head against the wall, believes he is controlled by computer chips and says he dies every night only to be reborn the next morning. Another seesaws between delusions and catatonia, spending days at a time naked and smeared with his own feces on the floor of his cell. Several have had their appeals indefinitely delayed because they are too incapacitated to assist in their own counsel, yet they remain on death row ostensibly awaiting execution. If they're too crazy for court, they're certainly too crazy for the death chamber.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Victims' families have legitimate grievances, and a right to want the guilty punished. But executions do not achieve justice; they are revenge killings conducted by the state on behalf of the victims, and serve no broader societal or judicial purpose. And fighting to push the insane closer to the needle moves the practice into the realm of the absurd.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If a condemned person doesn't understand why he or she is to be killed by the state, the state must recognize that and place the convicted in circumstances that will ensure basic constitutional rights are protected. Even the guilty are human beings, and must be treated as such.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Editorial, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

California lethal injections Mental Illness mentally incompetent inmates Psychiatric disorders USA A sane approach to dealing with mentally ill death row inmates

San Quentin's death row California's death penalty system has been broken for so long, you could forgive people for thinking that it...

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