Higher execution rate is predicted in California

[Thom Little]

California's capital punishment debate - ignited by the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams - will likely intensify as the state prepares to carry out death sentences at a pace unseen in more than a generation.

Williams, the quadruple murderer and co-founder of the Crips whose tale of redemption failed to spare his life this month, was the 12th inmate executed in California since voters reinstated capital punishment nearly three decades ago. Next year alone, four inmates could enter the execution chamber, including the state's oldest death row resident, 75-year-old Clarence Ray Allen, according to the state attorney general's office.

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Twenty-seven years after Californians voted to reinstate capital punishment, large numbers of death-row inmates are approaching the end of the decades-long appeals process. Since the practice resumed in 1992, only three times has the state executed more than one inmate in a single year.

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Dane Gillette, capital case coordinator for the state attorney general's office, said he expects to see more executions beginning next year.

"Two to three years from now, it's possible to have a considerable number of cases," he said.



http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14017438p-14850074c.html

[Spinzonner]

1. Arnold's latest sequel as the Terminator