Name and description:
Proposition 34- End the Death Penalty
Official Summary:
-Repeals death penalty as maximum punishment for persons found guilty of murder and replaces it with life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
-Applies retroactively to persons already sentenced to death.
-States tat persons found guilty of murder must work while in prison as prescribed by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, with their wages subject to deductions to be applied to any victim restitution fines or orders against them.
-Directs $100 million to law enforcement agencies for investigations of homicide and rape cases.
Short History:
On August 29th, 2011 Jeanne Woodford, a former Director of California’s Department of Corrections turned anti-death penalty advocate filed the language for “The Savings, Accountability and Full Enforcement for California Act”. Needing 504,760 citizen signatures, supporters collected around 800,000 signatures and were approved for the November ballot on March 1st of this year.
Those in favor and their arguments:
Supporters of Prop 34 include the ACLU, Amnesty International, The Catholic Church, The California Democratic Party and political office holders such as the mayor of Los Angeles, the former DA of Los Angeles County, and a former Attorney General of California.
Their main argument is that ending the Death Penalty will save the state millions of dollars in legal fees and maintenance of a large death row prison block. They also argue that the system is broken and innocent people could and have been executed.
Those against and their arguments:
The group funding the Vote No on 34 campaign consists of the state Sherriff’s Association, the California District Attorneys Association, The Republican Party of California, and the families of some murder victims, among others.
Their main arguments are that California voters have approved the death penalty already by vote, that the crimes of the people on death row warrant the death penalty, and that state budget problems should not have an effect on the punishment of criminals.
Where it gets kinda dumb:
California currently has 725 people on death row awaiting execution. Despite that, the State of California has not executed anyone since a 2006 ruling by a US District Court. That ruling said the lethal injections used by the state could result in much pain for the inmate and possibly constitute cruel and unusual punishment. A new process of execution hasn’t been put in place, so the size of death row continues to fluctuate as new people are convicted and others die, not of execution, but of illness in prison. California continues to pay to house death row inmates in their own private cells with amenities. Those inmates are also given full legal teams to help them through the many levels of appeals, usually on the tax payer dollar if they can’t afford the lawyers.
States that have abolished or not enacted the death penalty have done so because the people of the state have considered the death penalty to be intrinsically wrong. Leave it to California, however, to not stress the moral merits of the penalty, but instead to vote on it based on its fiscal impact. This advertisement from the Vote Yes on 34 campaign is a good example of how this proposition is being advocated for. Notice that almost the entire argument is about saving the government and taxpayers money, with only a brief mention of the possibility of executing an innocent person. Even though Amnesty International and the Catholic Church are advocating Vote Yes, the campaign in its advertisements does not argue that executions themselves are wrong.
My analysis:
I understand the arguments both for and against the death penalty. If one of my family members were killed, my first reaction would be to want the killer to die as well. However, as a pro-life-from-conception-to-natural-death Catholic, I believe that all life has worth and that forgiveness and redemption are more powerful that eye-for-an-eye justice. I agree with all of the fiscal arguments that the Vote Yes organization is making, I just wish that they focused more on why the death penalty is wrong instead of why we can’t afford it. Ignoring those arguments leaves room for voters to be okay with bringing back capital punishment once the state budget issues are fixed.
States that have abolished or not enacted the death penalty have done so because the people of the state have considered the death penalty to be intrinsically wrong. Leave it to California, however, to not stress the moral merits of the penalty, but instead to vote on it based on its fiscal impact. This advertisement from the Vote Yes on 34 campaign is a good example of how this proposition is being advocated for. Notice that almost the entire argument is about saving the government and taxpayers money, with only a brief mention of the possibility of executing an innocent person. Even though Amnesty International and the Catholic Church are advocating Vote Yes, the campaign in its advertisements does not argue that executions themselves are wrong.
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