Oct. 6
CALIFORNIA:
California has chance to change Three Strikes, repeal death penalty
For a state long considered loosey-goosey liberal, California has been
rock-ribbed conservative on crime. Only 4 times in the past century have the
state's voters supported ballot measures designed to ease the state's
tough-on-crime laws.
But on Nov. 6, voters will have the rare option of changing that pattern. For
the 1st time in the state's history, 2 major crime-related initiatives that
would soften the toughest laws on the books will appear on the same ballot.
Proposition 34 would repeal the death penalty, while Proposition 36 would ease
the nation's harshest Three Strikes sentencing law.
Experts say Proposition 34 will face a tougher go. It requires voters to do an
about-face and reject their historical embrace of capital punishment.
In contrast, Proposition 36 asks voters to change the Three Strikes Law by
reserving life sentences for the baddest of the bad -- while leaving many of
its central features intact for violent, repeat criminals.
But with crime rates relatively low statewide, proponents say there has never
been a better time to test whether voters in this blue state are in the mood to
be less red on public safety.
"Criminal offenders have not been terribly attractive in the politics of
California initiatives," said crime expert Franklin E. Zimring, a UC Berkeley
law professor. "But it's not inevitable they all get turned down."
According to an analysis by this newspaper, the only measures approved by
voters since 1912 to curb the power of the state's criminal justice system
involved:
Due process rights for the accused in 1934.
The right to the assistance of an attorney in 1972.
Legalization of medical marijuana in 1996.
Drug treatment rather than incarceration for certain offenders in 2000.
8 years ago, Proposition 66, a more far-reaching attempt to weaken the Three
Strikes Law, narrowly lost.
In the past 100 years, voters embraced 38 measures to strengthen the criminal
justice system.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, they approved nine measures to build prisons
and jails when violent crime was soaring. And in the 2000s, when it was
plummeting, they beefed up penalties for gang-related felonies and sex crimes.
Even liberal politicians like former Govs. Gray Davis and Jerry Brown have
advanced tough-on-crime policies. Davis didn't parole a single lifer during his
5 years in office. And Brown was instrumental in defeating Proposition 66 in
2004 by joining GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Republican Gov. Pete
Wilson in a last-minute TV blitz that swung the electorate against the measure.
But legal experts and proponents of the 2 independently run campaigns say
California may well be ripe for change. With voters' attention more focused on
economic worries and the state's multibillion-dollar deficit, the spiraling
cost of the justice system may be more of a concern.
"In a time when all sorts of programs are being cut back, I think it's rational
for people to decide whether they want the death penalty," said former Chief
Justice Ronald George.
George, who has taken no public position on Proposition 34, is a death penalty
supporter who has called California's version of it "dysfunctional."
The state also is under a federal court order to relieve prison overcrowding, a
predicament that proponents of a more lenient Three Strikes measure are using
to bolster their proposal to send fewer people to prison for life.
It won't hurt supporters of Propositions 34 and 36 that the state's crime rate
has dropped to 1960s levels.
"Proponents of these measures see an opportunity that might not exist at a time
when voters are worried about public safety," said Dan Schnur, director of the
University of Southern California's Unruh Institute of Politics.
Proposition 34 gives voters the first opportunity in more than three decades to
consider whether to scrap the death penalty and clear the largest death row in
the nation's history. It would replace execution with life in prison without
the possibility of parole and create a $100 million fund to be distributed to
law enforcement agencies to help solve more homicide and rape cases.
It is opposed by law enforcement, victims' rights groups and former Republican
Govs. Wilson and George Deukmejian, who argue that the death penalty should be
preserved for the state's most heinous killers and that the system should be
fixed and sped up, not scrapped.
With 726 inmates now on death row, California has executed just 13 murderers
since 1978. No one has been executed since February 2006 because of legal
challenges to the state's lethal injection procedures. Death row inmates'
appeals now take decades to resolve.
The cost of carrying out the death penalty has grown so large that it has
become the cornerstone of the Proposition 34 campaign. Rather than raising
traditional arguments against the death penalty -- that it is unfair or risks
executing the innocent -- the Yes on 34 campaign is urging voters to scrap the
punishment because of the higher cost of everything from death penalty trials
to housing death row inmates.
Californians continue to support the death penalty, although the margin has
declined in polls since more than 70 percent of voters put the law back on the
books in 1978. 2 recent statewide polls, while showing a close call on
Proposition 34, nevertheless showed majority support for capital punishment.
And a recent Los Angeles Times/USC Dornsife poll showed that Republicans and
independent voters are unswayed by the fiscal argument.
"In the death penalty situation, you're dealing with very strong, emotional
reactions," said former state Attorney General John Van de Kamp, who supports
Proposition 34.
In contrast, voters are responding to the 2-pronged strategy of Proposition 36
backers, who argue that the current law is unfair and a waste of taxpayer
dollars.
The Three Strikes initiative was crafted by a group of Stanford University law
professors and modeled on a proposal written years ago by Proposition 36 backer
Steve Cooley, the Republican district attorney of Los Angeles County.
California is the only 1 of the 26 states with Three Strikes laws to allow
prosecutors to charge any felony as a 3rd strike -- and then to lock up the
offenders for 25 years to life, if a judge approves. Under the existing law,
offenders who have committed such relatively minor third strikes as stealing a
pair of socks, attempting to break into a soup kitchen to get something to eat
and forging a check for $146 at Nordstrom have been sentenced to life in
prison.
Opponents, including the California District Attorneys Association, say locking
up repeat offenders has improved public safety -- and that the current law
gives prosecutors and judges the discretion they need to put away people who
seem bound to offend again, even if their most recent crime was minor.
If neither initiative passes, advocates vow to keep trying to steer the state
in a different direction on crime.
"This is how you get things changed," said Michael J. Brennan, a USC law
professor. "4 years from now, 8 years from now, it has a much better chance of
passing."
(source: Mercury News)
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Deputies Union Leader Criticizes Move to End Death Penalty
Passage of Proposition 34, the initiative on the November ballot that would
replace the death penalty in California with life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole, would "put law enforcement at risk," the president of
the union representing San Diego County Sheriff's Department deputies said
Saturday.
"Eliminating the death penalty would impact public safety," Deputy Sheriffs'
Association of San Diego President Dave Schaller said in conjunction with the
campaign against the measure announcing additions to the list of law
enforcement unions opposed to the proposition.
Natasha Minsker, campaign manager of the campaign on behalf of Proposition 34,
called the measure "justice that works for everybody."
"Thousands of victims wait for justice while we waste millions on death row, on
special housing, lifelong legal teams that work only on death penalty cases and
extra visiting hours," Minsker told City News Service.
"Killers who commit monstrous acts must be swiftly brought to justice, locked
up forever and severely punished. That's why Proposition 34 directs $100
million in savings for more DNA testing, crime labs and other tools that help
cops solve rapes and murders."
Proposition 34 would apply retroactively to people already sentenced to death
and require convicted killers to work while imprisoned, with their wages
applied to any victim restitution fines or orders against them.
Passage of the measure would result in net savings to the state and counties of
"the high tens of millions of dollars annually on a statewide basis," according
to an analysis prepared by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor and Director of
Finance Ana J. Matosantos.
California's death penalty law was approved by voters in 1978 and has resulted
in 13 executions, the most recent in 2006.
(source: City News Service)
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