Nov. 7
CALIFORNIA:
Narrow Loss in CA Death Penalty Repeal Shows Eroding Support
CALIFORNIA HOLDS ON TO DEATH PENALTY, BUT VOTE DEMONSTRATES SHARP EROSION IN
SUPPORT; Close Vote on Repeal Part of National Trend Away from Capital
Punishment
On November 6, 2012, California???s Proposition 34, an initiative to replace
the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole, was narrowly defeated
by a vote of 53% to 47%.
Although the vote means the death penalty will continue in the state, the
percent of voters supporting repeal represents a dramatic shift away from the
death penalty.
"The results of the referendum in California are a clear indication that an
increasing number of voters have changed their minds on the death penalty,"
said Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information
Center. "Such a costly, ineffective system no longer has the support of a large
majority of the public."
The California vote follows a broader trend of diminishing public support for
the punishment. By contrast, the 1978 ballot initiative that enacted
California's death penalty statute passed with the support of 71% of the
voters. In 1986, California Chief Justice Rose Bird was removed from office by
67% of voters because she was perceived as blocking the death penalty.
Nationally, support for the death penalty in the Gallup Poll has dropped from
80% in 1994 to only 61% most recently. Moreover, when respondents are given
alternatives such as life without parole, support for the death penalty falls
below 50%.
California's use of the death penalty has declined in recent years. Death
sentences in California have dropped from 40 in 1981 to only 10 in 2011.
California has not carried out an execution since 2006. This declining use of
the death penalty is in line with a broader national trend:
* New death sentences dropped to 78 in 2011, representing a dramatic 75%
decline since 1996, when 315 individuals were sentenced to death. It was the
1st time since 1976 that the country produced fewer than 100 death sentences in
a single year.
* Executions have steadily decreased nationwide, with 43 in 2011 and 46 in
2010, representing a 56% decline since 1999, when there were 98.
* In recent years, Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, New York and New Jersey
abolished the death penalty.
Executions in California are not likely to resume soon as questions related to
the method of execution and the overall fairness of the system need to be
resolved. The costs of the death penalty are likely to play a prominent role in
its future in the state.
(source: The Death Penalty Information Center (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) is a
non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and
information on issues concerning capital punishment. DPIC was founded in 1990
and prepares in-depth reports, issues press releases, conducts briefings for
the media, and serves as a resource to those working on this issue)
*********************
California Death Penalty Hangs On (Barely)
By a narrow 52.7%-47.3% margin, California voters have chosen to retain their
state's death penalty. This represents a 19% decline in support for capital
punishment from the 1978 referendum that enacted the current death penalty law.
At that time 71% voted for the death penalty.
The need to end the killing of prisoners and redirect resources in a more
useful way (like investigating the 46% of murders that go unsolved in
California each year) brought together a wide array of advocates, from human
rights and civil liberties groups like Amnesty International and the ACLU, to
murder victim family members, to death row exonerees, to a former warden of San
Quentin and former top proponents of the 1978 ballot initiative.
As Rose Seward, who survived an attack from a serial killer who killed 5 other
women, wrote just 2 days before the vote: "How can we say with credibility that
murder is abhorrent, an abomination, and then turn around and commit the act
ourselves?"
We can't. That's why support for capital punishment has declined so
significantly in California.
This diminishing enthusiasm for executions, though not quite enough to pass
Prop 34, is reflective of the national trend away from the death penalty.
Growing moral qualms about the practice of killing prisoners, combined with
frustrations over costs and worries that errors could lead to executing the
innocent, are spreading across the country.
5 states in 5 years have abandoned capital punishment, and death sentences have
dropped precipitously to their lowest totals since the 1970s. Executions are
not likely to resume anytime soon in California, and more states are likely to
repeal their death penalty laws in 2013 and beyond.
(source: Brian Evans, Amnesty International USA, blog)
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