California Death Penalty Bill Dies Before Even Coming To A Vote

A bill in the California State Senate that would eliminate the death penalty has been killed before it ever had the chance to come to a vote.

Sponsored by Senator Loni Hancock (D-Oakland), SB 490 would have put the option of getting rid of California's death penalty on the November 2012 ballot. Crimes previously meriting the death penalty would have then been punished by life without parole.

In the face of political realities in the state legislature, Hancock has withdrawn the bill. The Bellingham Herald reports:

"The votes were not there to support reforming California's expensive and dysfunctional death penalty system," Hancock said in a written statement.

"I had hoped we would take the opportunity to save hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to support our schools and universities, keep police on our streets and fund essential public institutions like the courts," she said.

Hancock was unable to secure the nine votes needed to move her bill out of the out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and onto the floor of the senate for a full vote.

Even though Hancock's bill failed, it doesn't necessarily mean that voters won't soon have the chance to weigh in on the state's use of the death penalty. The Los Angels Times reports:

Taxpayers for Justice, a coalition of death penalty foes galvanized by the spiraling costs of keeping execution as a sentencing option, immediately announced a citizens initiative aimed for the November 2012 ballot.

Civil rights groups have been attempting to call attention to the costs of the death penalty for years. That message gained traction in June with the release of a comprehensive study by a federal judge and a law professor showing that taxpayers have spent $4 billion over the last three decades to carry out only 13 executions.

Governor Jerry Brown, who vetoed a bill allowing the death penalty when he was governor in the 1970s, declined to comment directly on SB 490's failure; however, he seemed to support putting the death penalty issue before the voters. "In general, I've said as a principle, that when we have deep, troublesome issues that create gridlock in the Legislature, going back to the people could be a way to break the gridlock," Brown told the Associated Press during a press conference detailing his new jobs plan.

A 2010 Field Poll showed that 70 percent of Californians support the death penalty.

Comments

[dbrett480]

07:21 PM on 08/31/2011

What a waste of money putting this on the ballot. The death penalty is probably the most well-supported government program out there.

[ilovemama]

07:05 PM on 08/29/2011

Why is there no update on HUFF about the real story here? They just announced this morning that they are starting signature gathering to put it on the ballot in 2012 so the VOTERS (not politicians only focused on getting reelected) can decide if we should be wasting all this money on a broken, immoral death penalty system. power to the people! http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_18781181

[rjhuntington]

06:33 AM on 08/28/2011

If killing is wrong then killing is wrong. Two wrongs don't make it right.

[ACADP]

07:43 PM on 08/27/2011

What kind of a decent civilised person would want to be an executioner, or involved in an execution?

It doesn't take a genius to comprehend that it takes a "certain" individual to kill another person in a stealth, cold-blooded, carefully-prepared, pre-mediated and barbaric ritual of state-sanctioned killing. Can it be possible to be a cold-blooded executioner and also a caring loving family man?

In the words of former Virginia executioner Jerry Givens ..."The job turned me into an animal, it transformed my life to become I hate to say, an animal."

Givens spent 17 years as a professional legal killer - from 1982 to 1999 - and presided over 62 executions. He now opposes what he calls ... "the ultimate revenge".

Givens acknowledges that the USA seems to take more care about pets than it does humans.

[Marioth]

11:44 AM on 08/27/2011

Barbarism will not save California.

[SocialD7]

11:35 PM on 08/26/2011

That 2010 field pole statement is a little misleading,

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/public-opinion-california-poll-shows-increase-support-life-without-parole

With over 700 inmates currently on death row and the last one put to death in 2006, looks like some of these may die of old age before they get executed.

[FTracy3]

09:20 PM on 08/26/2011

This may end up proving that killing anti-death penalty bills IS a deterrent to other anti-death penalty bills.

[Dan Vasquez]

06:07 PM on 08/26/2011

I'm signing the petition the day it comes out.

[MrStat1]

05:34 PM on 08/26/2011

With polls showing 70% of Californiains, myself included, supporting the death penalty it would die big time at the voting booth.

[Trevor Schmidt]

06:25 PM on 08/26/2011

It is nice to know that 70% of Californians let the government kill its citizens. Another reason I would not like to move to California.

[MrStat1]

06:50 PM on 08/26/2011

Then don't. No one really cares if you do or not.

[IndependentAndProud]

02:27 AM on 08/27/2011

I don't agree with the death penalty, but taking a shot at California was childish.

[EducatedWoman]

07:45 PM on 08/26/2011

So, your personal share of the cost of executing these 13 people works out to about $107,370. I hope you feel you've been getting your money's worth.

[PunisherWarJournal]

07:45 AM on 08/27/2011

Yet another example of our broken judicial system.

[Donkan]

05:05 PM on 08/26/2011

Even those people who believe that a death penalty is right and proper must realize that the system is broken and needs to be changed. What purpose does it serve to sentence people to death when it only results in endless years of appeals and tremendous taxpayer expense? And that's not even addressing the significant number of cases in which condemned people have been later proved innocent.