Bid to end death penalty headed to the ballot (California)

[alp227]

Source: SF Chronicle

For the third time in 40 years, Californians will vote in November on the death penalty, an institution that has had at least as much impact on the state's politics as on its institutions of crime and punishment.

Opponents of capital punishment said today they were submitting 800,000 signatures on petitions for an initiative to close the nation's largest Death Row, which has 725 condemned prisoners. The measure needs 504,760 valid signatures to make the ballot.

"California voters are ready to replace the death penalty with life in prison with no chance of parole," declared Jeanne Woodford, who oversaw four executions as warden of San Quentin State Prison. She now heads the anti-capital punishment group Death Penalty Focus.

It was an unusually optimistic statement in a state whose residents have consistently supported the death penalty. The most recent Field Poll, in September, showed 68 percent support - although respondents in the same survey, when asked their preferred sentence for murder, backed life without parole over death by 48 to 40 percent.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/01/BAO21NEQAR.DTL

[lunatica]

1. We need to get ready for the fear mongering pro death penalty political ads

The worst criminals will be their poster choices. And California has plenty of those.

[dotymed]

2. Of course, that is their M.O.

It is so saddening when you realize that so many humane things are taken for granted in all other civilized countries (except China...yes we are on the same page as china) like no capital punishment, health care for all (most countries), just life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness except in America.

[EFerrari]

3. Prison guards lobby is very powerful here.

The death penalty must be big business for someone, though, because Californians aren't more blood thirsty than other people.