[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., ARIZ., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 19




NEBRASKA:

Secrecy for suppliers would fix death penalty law


At a recent forum sponsored by death penalty opponents in Hastings, the 
representative of the political campaign opposing the death penalty stated most 
people who vote will only spend "30 seconds learning about the issue." Her 
implication that overwhelming public support for repealing the Legislature's 
elimination of the death penalty was based on voter ignorance was as incorrect 
as it was condescending.

Contrary to her dismissal of voters as uniformed, I have found most voters 
asking serious and thoughtful questions about capital punishment. 
Unfortunately, too often facts about the death penalty in Nebraska are 
distorted and misrepresented by death penalty opponents.

A frequent talking point of death penalty opponents is that the system for 
carrying out the penalty is broken beyond repair. The "broken" assertion refers 
to the inability to obtain sodium thiopental, the anesthetic drug administered 
to produce unconsciousness during lethal injection. What capital punishment 
opponents do not tell voters is that the drug is only unavailable due to 
political activism and public harassment of companies that manufacture the 
drug. One single statutory change fixes the allegedly "broken beyond repair" 
system and enables legal access to sodium thiopental.

Statutory protection of the identity of the manufacturer of sodium thiopental 
would open a domestic source. 12 states already have shield laws. Transparency 
can be successfully guaranteed, making laboratory analysis of the drug publicly 
available for evaluation of purity and efficacy. If Nebraska voters repeal the 
Legislature's action, senators can quickly fix a system they have heretofore 
refused to repair.

Voters are likely unaware of the human cost of death penalty opponent's 
successful elimination of sodium thiopental from the U.S. market to protect the 
lives of convicted death row inmates. Sodium thiopental is a safe, effective, 
and FDA-approved anesthetic agent, considered a mainstay of anesthesia. 
Protests led the last U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental to cease 
production of the drug in 2009. Sandoz, a subsidiary of Novartis, manufactures 
the drug in Europe, but the company has banned its import into the United 
States to prevent its use in lethal injection.

The unavailability of sodium thiopental prompted the American Society of 
Anesthesiologists to appeal to the FDA to aid in importation, citing "a 
dangerous reduction in the availability of anesthesia induction medications" 
and "that the safety of American patients is now in jeopardy." The 
anesthesiologists stated the irony that many more lives will be lost or put in 
jeopardy as a result of not having the drug available for its legitimate 
medical use.

Propofol, the anesthetic drug substituted due to the lack of sodium thiopental, 
is not indicated for use in pregnant, geriatric, cardiovascular, or neurologic 
surgical patients because it causes dangerous drops in blood pressure and 
respiratory depression in newborns. A 2nd class of drugs, called pressors, are 
required to counteract propofol's negative effects. Propofol has also 
experienced production shortages, leaving physicians with less than optimal 
options for safely anesthetizing patients.

The assertion of sodium thiopental is considered "illegal" by FDA and the 
implication that it is unsafe is absolutely false. Sodium thiopental is an 
FDA-approved safe and effective drug. Its importation has been restricted by 
executive action of the DEA.

I opposed the Legislature's elimination of the death penalty on every vote. My 
research proves Nebraska's system is fixable. Senators have a straightforward, 
proven solution to make Nebraska's death penalty enforceable. Instead, previous 
Legislatures have failed to act and further complicated the system. Voters 
should not be misled, and patients should not be denied effective medical 
therapy to protect convicted killers.

(source: Opinion; Sen. John Kuehn of Heartwell represents District 38 in the 
Nebraska Legislature----Kearney Hub)

*******************

Governor shares reasons for supporting death penalty


Public safety is one of my top priorities as your governor. One of the tools 
law enforcement needs to keep our families and communities safe is laws that 
are tough-on-crime. Criminal penalties like mandatory sentencing laws, 
3-strikes laws and the death penalty act as deterrents and provide justice.

Last year, the Legislature passed Legislative Bill 268 to abolish the death 
penalty. There was an immediate effort to allow Nebraska voters to decide the 
issue on the ballot. During the summer of 2015, enough petition signatures were 
gathered not only to allow the people to vote, but also to prevent LB268 from 
going into effect until after the vote of the people this November.

Next month, voters will decide whether to abolish or keep the death penalty. 
The question on the ballot pertains to retaining or repealing the bill the 
Legislature passed. A vote to retain the bill passed by the Legislature will 
abolish the death penalty in Nebraska. A vote to repeal the bill passed by the 
Legislature will keep the death penalty in Nebraska.

I am a strong advocate to keep the death penalty because it is a critical tool 
for law enforcement and criminal prosecutors to protect public safety.

First, the death penalty protects our corrections officers and law enforcement. 
Every week, numerous men and women go to work in our corrections system. They 
risk their lives to provide security at our prisons as well as to deliver 
programming to help inmates become productive members of society upon release. 
In prison management, the death penalty is a safeguard against violent 
criminals who are already behind bars. Without the death penalty, an inmate 
sentenced to life in prison has nothing to lose by taking the life of a 
correction office. In fact, there have been a number of law enforcement and 
corrections officers who have thanked me for my support of the death penalty.

The death penalty also helps protect our communities. Those working to abolish 
the death penalty argue that life in prison will protect our communities, 
however, consider the story of Laddie Dittrich. In 1973, Laddie Dittrich was 
convicted of burglary and first degree murder. He received a life sentence. 
Prior to my administration, the Pardons Board commuted Dittrich's sentence to 
80 years to life. Subsequently, Dittrich was paroled in 2014. Later that year, 
Dittrich was arrested for third degree sexual assault involving a 10-year-old 
girl. A life in prison sentence does not guarantee an offender will stay in 
prison, and it did not protect the community from Dittrich.

As we approach the vote, there is an increasing amount of misinformation. For 
example, out-of-state advocates are discussing wrongful convictions and the 
possibility of putting innocent people to death. This is an important 
conversation to have, however, nobody is claiming that any of Nebraska's 10 
death row inmates are innocent. In fact, three of them are on video murdering 5 
people in the attempted robbery of a Norfolk bank. Checks and balances in 
Nebraska ensure that the death penalty is used sparingly and applied justly, 
and rapid advancements in DNA technology will help to ensure accuracy in future 
cases.

Anti-death penalty activists paid a researcher for a study that said the death 
penalty costs the state more money. The study relies on out-of-state data 
rather than Nebraska statistics. Attorney General Doug Peterson identified 
"serious inaccuracies" in the study, noting that the study suggests Nebraska 
incurs 20 times the costs realized by other states. In fact, the Appropriations 
Bill advanced from the Unicameral???s independent legislative fiscal office 
found zero dollars in cost savings associated with abolishing the death 
penalty.

In the next couple of weeks, Nebraskans will weigh the arguments to abolish or 
keep the death penalty, and it's important people have the facts instead of bad 
information. It's also critical that you read the ballot language very 
carefully. A vote to retain LB 268 will abolish the death penalty in Nebraska. 
A vote to repeal LB268 will keep the death penalty in Nebraska.

(source: Gov. Pete Ricketts, The Fremont Tribune)

***************************

Time is right to abolish state's ineffective death penalty law


Nebraskans will make a historic decision Nov. 8 when asked to weigh in on the 
issue of capital punishment, and based on a number of convincing factors it 
seems time that life in prison is now a better option than maintaining a death 
sentence that ultimately can't be used.

Nebraska lawmakers voted to abolish the death penalty in May of 2015, later 
overriding Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto. Death penalty supporters had no trouble 
getting enough signatures to put this question up to a statewide vote, and in 
the end that seems appropriate. This vote represents a significant life and 
death issue, and should be decided by all Nebraskans.

Though once a supported means of doling out punishment appropriate for only the 
worst of crimes, the death penalty now seems more of a costly exercise in 
futility. The state last executed a prisoner in 1997 and has been unable to 
acquire the necessary lethal injection drugs for several years. In effect, 
we've already been without capital punishment for almost 2 decades.

During that time, however, the state has spent an estimated $14 million a year 
dealing with appeal after appeal after appeal, which has become standard 
operating procedure. With life hanging in the balance, we understand the need 
to exhaust all legal challenges, but the end results suggest that this system 
simply isn't working as a means of fighting crime and/or deterring evil-doers 
from striking again.

During the past 43 years, more than 1,800 homicides have been committed in 
Nebraska, and yet only 10 prisoners now sit on death row. Those statistics 
raise all kinds of questions in and of themselves in terms of fairness and 
consistency, yet another strike against the death penalty provision. One could 
also argue that DNA testing has increased the possibility of death row inmates 
being exonerated years after the crime.

There is a growing wave of opposition to death penalty legislation nationwide, 
as Nebraska is now one of 20 states that have done away with capital 
punishment. The reasons for that are many and varied, including moral and 
religious rationale. On that note his is an issue of the heart and personal 
conviction.

The irony is, even if voters decide to revive the state's capital punishment 
law prison officials will be unable to carry out executions for the foreseeable 
future. That makes no sense whatsoever.

The time has come to accept the fact that sentencing the state???s worst 
criminals to life in prison is a better solution than placing them on a 
meaningless, costly death row.

Kurt Johnson

(source: Letter to the Editor, Aurora News Register)






ARIZONA:

Arizona court hearing to focus on lethal injection drug


A judge presiding over a lawsuit that protests the way Arizona carries out 
executions is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday over a sedative that was 
recently abandoned as one of the state's lethal injection drugs.

Lawyers for the state are seeking to dismiss the lawsuit's claim that the 
sedative midazolam can't ensure that condemned inmates won't feel the pain 
that's caused by another drug in a 3-drug execution protocol.

The state announced nearly four months ago that it was eliminating its use of 
midazolam after its supply expired and another supplier couldn't be found 
because of pressure from opponents of the death penalty. Attorneys for the 
state say the legal claim is moot because the drug won't be used in the future 
executions.

U.S. District Judge Neil Wake scheduled the hearing after learning that Ohio 
now has a supply of midazolam and plans to resume executions there in January.

Executions in Arizona will remain on hold until the lawsuit is resolved. They 
were put on hold after the July 2014 death of convicted killer Joseph Rudolph 
Wood, who was given 15 dozes of midazolam and a painkiller and who took nearly 
2 hours to die. His attorney said the execution was botched.

Several of the lawsuit's claims have been dismissed, but lawyers for the 
condemned inmates want to press forward with allegations that the state has 
abused its discretion in the methods and amounts of the drugs used in past 
executions.

Similar challenges to the death penalty are playing out in other parts of the 
country that seek more transparency about where states get their execution 
drugs.

States are struggling to obtain execution drugs because European pharmaceutical 
companies began blocking the use of their products for lethal injections.

(source: Associated Press)

********************

Arizona prosecutor with more death sentences than 99.5 percent of counties is 
up for re-election


Sheriff Joe Arpaio gets a lot of attention in Phoenix for being corrupt, 
infantile, fanatical, and power hungry, but he's not the only bad public 
servant out there. Bill Montgomery, the Maricopa County Attorney, is one of the 
nation's worst prosecutors. Montgomery, a Republican, is facing re-election on 
Nov. 8. His opponent, former prosecutor and Democrat Diego Rodriguez, has been 
critical of Montgomery's record. "People just want to know the County 
Attorney's Office matches their idea of justice," he said earlier this week. 
According to Rodriguez, Montgomery "is a political animal. He's not what I am 
comfortable having administer justice in this county."

Montgomery is bad on a whole host of issues - the death penalty, abortion, 
immigration, marijuana, sex crimes, racial justice, animal protection, 
transparency, and innocence claims, to name a few - and we will cover them all 
over the next few weeks. But for now, lets just start with the fact that 
Maricopa administers the death penalty more often than 99.5 % of other counties 
or county-equivalents. Yes, 99.5 %.

All of that is because of Bill Montgomery's office. In fact, between 2010, the 
year he was elected, and 2015, Bill Montgomery's office was responsible for 28 
death sentences. From "Too Broken to Fix," a report from Harvard Law School's 
Fair Punishment Project:

Between 2010 and 2015, Maricopa County had 28 death sentences. Maricopa's rate 
of death sentencing per 100 homicides is approximately 2.3 times higher than 
the rate for the rest of Arizona. Though Maricopa has 1 % of the nation's 
population, it accounts for 3.6 % of the death sentences returned nationally 
between 2010 and 2015.

That puts Montgomery's office in the top 1/2 of 1 % when it comes to death 
penalty sentences. This, despite the fact that death penalty cases are insanely 
expensive for the taxpayer, and despite the fact that evidence shows that the 
death penalty isn't a real deterrent.

And, if the sheer number of cases alone isn't adequately concerning, the 
defendants share some troubling similarities.

Researchers from Fair Punishment Project attribute much of the high death 
penalty sentences to prosecutorial overreach. "What we saw in Maricopa County 
that struck us the most was the pattern of over-zealousness from the 
prosecution," said Smith, director of the Fair Punishment Project and senior 
research fellow at Harvard Law School. "Both in terms of pushing the ethical 
and legal boundaries in cases, and also seeking the death sentence and 
obtaining it some of the most broken and vulnerable people."

Montgomery wants it both ways. He wants to sentence a ton of people to death 
while pretending he's not that bad. The Arizona Republic reported this week 
that "Montgomery said he has been bringing the number of cases down[.]" But the 
numbers are clear - Bill Montgomery continues to rack up death sentences more 
than virtually any other prosecutor, despite evidence of impropriety and racial 
bias.

Montgomery and Rodriguez are on the ballot in Maricopa County on Nov. 8.

(source: dailykos.com)






CALIFORNIA:

Californians dying death penalty


Californians will abolish the death penalty sooner or later, it doesn???t 
really matter which argument ultimately convinces them, be it moral, financial 
or risk of executing innocent people. The sooner Californians discontinue the 
death penalty the better. It is a primitive system that kills people, it's end 
needs to come sooner rather than later.

On the ballot this Nov. 8 there will be 2 competing measures addressing the 
death penalty in California. Proposition 62 and proposition 66 both share the 
same overtones, being that the death penalty is a broken system in need of 
intervention, but don't see eye to eye on the prognosis.

Taxpayers For Sentencing Reform sponsored an online ad that said, "California's 
death penalty system was beyond repair" and plagued with "endless appeals" 
resulting in "millions of legal fees."

Californians aren't happy with the state of capital punishment in their state. 
In 1972 the California Supreme Court found that the death penalty constituted 
cruel and unusual punishment and then reinstated it in 1978.

Since then 13 inmates were executed. Today there are 756 inmates on death row 
in California, 233 of them in Los Angeles County, and it's costing the state 
150 billion per year.

Prop. 62 proposes to repeal the death penalty as maximum punishment for persons 
found guilty of murder and replaces it with life imprisonment without 
possibility of parole. It would be retroactive, applying to inmates previously 
sentenced to death and it would require the inmate to work while in prison and 
give 60 % of their earnings to victim restitution.

"For me, it's about costs, it's money," former El Dorado County Supervisor Ron 
Briggs said during a debate in September. Briggs is the son of John Briggs, the 
lawmaker who successfully drafted the proposal to bring back capital punishment 
in California in the 70s, and one of the strongest advocate for Prop. 62.

"We thought we would save money," Briggs said. "We thought we would bring 
conclusion and closure to the victim's families. And on every single fact, we 
were dead wrong."

It's hard to say if the financial argument will be strong enough for voters. 
Surely it will add some grip to the already shifting sensibility of public 
opinion towards the death penalty.

In 1978 the death penalty was reintroduced with the support of over 70 % of the 
voters. In 2012, when another Californian ballot measure tried to repeal it, it 
failed 52 to 48 %. The majority of the voters still wanted to keep the death 
penalty, but not as many. In 2016 Pew Research poll in 2016 found the capital 
punishment had the lowest support in 40 years.

"Ideas in the community change. The supreme court has mentioned this a number 
of times, the consensus of the community evolves," attorney at law Nancy Haydt 
said during a panel presented by Capital Public Radio. "As to the death 
penalty, 7 states in the past few years have done away with the death penalty 
so there is a sense that people are looking more critically at the death 
penalty and are not feeling nearly as comfortable with it as they have in the 
past."

A study in 2009 proved that the death penalty isn't an effective deterrent to 
crime and according to the American Civil liberties Union's (ACLU) website 
between 1973 and 2015, 148 innocent death-row prisoners in 26 different states 
were exonerated and released.

It can only be speculated exactly how many people were wrongly executed, but a 
research shows that almost four percent of U.S. capital punishment sentences 
are wrongful convictions.

The proponents of Prop. 66 agree that the system is broken but do not want to 
end the death penalty because they think it wouldn't be just for the families 
of the victims. They want to reform the execution process speeding up the 
appeals system.

"At the end of the day, once you have executed a condemned inmate, he can never 
kill again," the president of the Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney 
Association Michele Hanisee said during a debate on positions 61 and 66. One 
can hardly argue with her from a logical standpoint, but on every other level, 
there is much to say.

It is true, as she says, that there are people on death row that have served 
time for murder, got out, and killed again or that while serving life without 
parole killed another inmate or a prison guard, but saying that "to put it 
bluntly a dead person cannot commit another crime and that alone is a 
deterrent," is too simplistic to say the least.

The last person to be executed in California was Clarence Ray Allen in 2006. He 
was already in prison for murder when he orchestrated the murder of additional 
people.

"The belief that we are safe because they are in prison is a false promise," 
district attorney in Sacramento County, Anne Marie Schubert, said in the same 
debate.

That does not mean that we should put them to death because we don't know how 
to manage them? For her, a supporter of Prop. 66, this "is about the victims of 
crime. We are talking about roughly one thousand victims that have been 
murdered by death row killers, we are talking about well over 200 children who 
most of them have been raped and murdered, we are talking about child killers, 
serial killers, police officers who have been killed in line of duty, we are 
talking about mass murderers who walk into schools and kill people for no other 
reason than just kill people."

We are talking about criminals, but the state shouldn't have power over their 
life, to end their life. As monstrous as they are, they have rights. Inmates 
have rights. Some they lose, but some they get to keep. They keep the right, 
under the Eighth Amendment, to be free from "cruel and unusual" punishment.

It's about time start considering the death penalty as a cruel and unusual 
punishment regardless of the efficiency of the drugs used for the lethal 
injection. It is perverse to keep looking for a dignifying way to put inmates 
to death-as monstrous as their crimes can be.

(source: Marta Valier, Pasadena City College Courier)

****************

Death penalty in double gang murder at Bob's hamburger joint? Owner 
accidentally killed


An 18-year-old reputed gang member who allegedly opened fire inside a burger 
restaurant in a Harbor City strip mall, killing a gang target and 
unintentionally murdering the eatery's longtime owner was facing capital murder 
charges Tuesday that could send him to death row.

Joey Alfred Mendoza, who wore some kind of mask during the attack, is scheduled 
to be arraigned Nov. 16 at the Long Beach courthouse on 2 counts of murder 
stemming from the attack at Bob's Hamburgers last Wednesday morning that killed 
Charalambos Antonelos, 61, of San Pedro, and Louis Garcia, 23, of Wilmington.

Detectives say Garcia was the target, and restaurant owner Antonelos was struck 
by stray gunfire.

The murder charges, filed Monday, include the special circumstance allegations 
of multiple murders and murder carried out to further the activities of the 
defendant's "criminal street gang," along with an allegation that he personally 
and intentionally discharged a handgun.

Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty against 
Mendoza, who was arrested a day after the shooting.

Mendoza allegedly pulled out a handgun and fired several shots after 
approaching Garcia as he stood next to the restaurant's counter about 9:30 a.m. 
Garcia collapsed and died at the scene.

Antonelos, who had been working behind the counter, died at a hospital.

Witnesses and police said the gunman's face was covered during the attack.

"Harbor detectives identified the suspect through surveillance video, witness 
statements and gang intelligence," according to a statement released by the Los 
Angeles Police Department.

Mendoza has remained behind bars since he was arrested about 1:45 a.m. last 
Thursday.

An employee said Bob's Hamburgers had been operating for about 30 years, and 
distraught customers told reporters that the longtime owner was known for 
giving out free food to those in need.

(source: mynewsla.com)

*******************

Hercules: Convicted killer's past disseminated during death penalty hearing

Now that they've found him guilty of murder, a Contra Costa jury has been asked 
to decide whether Darnell Washington should live or die.

Washington, 27, was convicted in September of murdering Hercules resident Susie 
Ko, a 55-year-old retired kindergarten teacher who was stabbed to death in her 
home in 2012. At the time of her death, Washington was on the run from the law, 
having escaped from a San Bernardino County jail weeks earlier.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Washington. In her statements 
to the jury, prosecutor Molly Manoukian has said that Ko suffered before she 
died, and that Washington beat and stabbed her to death so that he could steal 
her car.

Ko was popular in the Hercules community; hundreds attended her funeral, and 
dozens have sat in on Washington's trial, including Ko's former students. Her 
abrupt death shocked residents in the small town, which had only a handful of 
homicides over the previous 10 years.

Less is known about Washington. He spent time in a group home as a child, but 
kept in contact with his mother. He got into fights in high school. He was 
arrested and convicted of robbery and carjacking as a teen.

In his early 20s, while awaiting trial on felony charges, he escaped from San 
Bernardino County Jail with the help of his wife. Days later, he got into a 
shootout with Southern California police, then fled to the Bay Area, stole a 
car in Fremont, attempted a robbery at a Kmart, and ended up at Susie Ko's Ash 
Court home.

He was arrested in Washington state after a brief police pursuit in October 
2012. His wife later accepted a plea deal, taking 26 years for voluntary 
manslaughter.

The penalty phase of the trial is likely to put Washington's life under a 
microscope. On Tuesday, the prosecution presented its witnesses, including one 
woman who testified that Washington participated in an attempted robbery in 
2004, and another who said he pushed her in 1999, when he was 11 years old. 
Washington was staying in a Los Angeles-area group home where the woman worked. 
He had been instructed to write something 200 times as a punishment for bad 
behavior when he became frustrated, shoved stuff off of the table he was 
writing on, and ended up shoving the woman, she testified.

During cross-examination, Washington's attorney, Tim Ahearn, asked the woman 
whether she remembered Washington as being bright and having potential.

(source: East Bay Times)

**************************

A death penalty by any other name


Proposition 62, the "Justice That Works Act," claims to end the death penalty 
in California. But if it is voted in, it will result in the death of thousands 
of prisoners. In this case, a death penalty by another name will kill no less 
effectively, no less cruelly.

Life without the possibility of parole, particularly after the passage of this 
ballot initiative, will mean exactly what it says. Or as the author of the 
proposition prosaically framed it: "They grow old in prison and they die in 
prison." Death is the expected outcome of the penalty; the death penalty in 
other words.

There's more to Prop. 62 that should warrant caution. The language calls for 
all of us so sentenced, while we're awaiting our old age and eventual deaths, 
to be housed in "high-security" prisons. In this state, home to the largest 
prison system ever found by the U.S. Supreme Court to be violating the cruel 
and unusual punishments clause of the Constitution, on an industrial scale, 
that means a lifetime of suffering and deprivation. It also means a virtual 
blank check being handed over to prison bureaucrats to exact whatever kind of 
brutality they see fit.

The language of the initiative elevates the expansions of the widely derided 
"felony murder rule" to the almost unchangeable level of constitutional, 
voter-approved law. Under the felony murder rule, in a case where the police 
shoot and kill a suspect, any accomplices, even a driver, can be charged with 
1st-degree murder. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners serving 
life without the possibility of parole sentences due to the many contortions of 
this legal precept.

In case anyone has forgotten, these same arguments were made 4 years ago, and 
they failed. The difference this time is added provisions to increase the 
harshness of the sentence and an even more direct appeal to revenge sentencing. 
The conclusion of the professional death penalty abolitionists appears to be 
the only way to rid our state of the stain of capital punishment is to hand the 
voters a pile of stones to throw at prisoners.

The rest of the industrialized, democratic countries long ago abandoned capital 
punishment as a violation of basic human rights. They did it by outlawing the 
death penalty, plain and simple. There was no ugly trade-off. For some reason I 
can't quite fathom, our professional death penalty abolitionists settled on an 
appeasement strategy instead.

Within just the last few years, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that 
life without the possibility of parole sentences are a violation of human 
rights and banned them. The interesting thing is out of a continent of roughly 
500 million people there turned out to be about 100 prisoners sentenced to the 
other death penalty. There are more than that in the building I'm assigned to; 
in California there are close to 5,000, in the U.S., 50,000. And even without 
these terrible punishments, somehow the Europeans manage to have a far lower 
murder rate.

Pope Francis, in an address to the International Association of Penal Law in 
2014, referred to long life sentences as "hidden death sentences."

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty does not support Prop. 62, and Human 
Rights Watch, one of the world's premier civil rights organizations and 
committed abolitionists, does not support it either. These are the kind of 
telling details that should raise everyone's mental radar.

If Prop. 62 passes, I'm sure the backers will congratulate themselves for 
ending the death penalty in California. No doubt Mike Farrell, author and prime 
sponsor, will be given some kind of humanitarian award from his limousine-lefty 
pals.

The truth on the ground, inside the broken, violent, dysfunctional 
high-security prisons will be quite a different story. Almost 6,000 men and 
women will be forced into worse conditions, with severely restricted appeal 
rights, to grow old and die miserable deaths in prison.

I've now served almost 37 years for killing a man in a drunken fistfight when I 
was 19 years old. I was guilty, and I deserved punishment. I've worked hard to 
become better than my worst moment, and punished I most certainly have been. 
Anywhere else on this planet, I'd be out of prison by now. But here in 
California, in our enlightened, advanced state, self-appointed celebrity 
leaders of civil rights groups want my punishment just getting started. That's 
no way to end the death penalty.

If I could, I'd vote no on Prop. 62.

(source: Op-Ed; Kenneth E. Hartman is the founder and executive director of The 
Other Death Penalty Project, a nonprofit organization of prisoners dedicated to 
ending all forms of the death penalty, including life without the possibility 
of parole----San Francisco Examiner)

************************

California Has a Bloated, Unsustainable Death Penalty


With 2 death penalty propositions on the November ballot, Californians are 
reexamining capital punishment. For fiscal conservatives, it should be a simple 
matter of dollars and cents.

California's death penalty has cost taxpayers over $4 billion since 1978, 
according to a 2011 study. Death penalty experts Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and 
Professor Paula M. Mitchell estimate that "capital trials cost on average an 
additional $1 million more than non-capital cases," and "often cost 10-20 times 
more than murder trials that don't involve the death penalty."

Let those numbers sink in. What have California's taxpayers gotten for their $4 
billion investment? 13 executions and three wrongful capital convictions. 
Meanwhile, the capital punishment system doesn't adequately protect society and 
is a harmful and traumatic process for murder victims' families.

So what exactly makes capital case trials so much more expensive? To begin 
with, capital cases have a minimum of 2 attorneys working on each side (for 
both the defense and the prosecution) rather than 1 per side typically found in 
most non-capital cases. Capital cases generally have multiple investigators and 
experts and an extended jury selection process. Furthermore, death penalty 
trials are much longer, and capital proceedings have an additional sentencing 
trial, which is unique to death cases. The initial trials are where the largest 
portion of the added cost is usually found, not in the appeals, as is often 
believed.

Additionally, the appeals process is very complex and expensive. Outside of the 
courtroom, the cost of housing death row inmates heaps a heavy burden on the 
shoulders of the California taxpayer as well. Housing them costs an additional 
$90,000 annually per inmate. After crunching the numbers, it is starkly 
apparent that California???s death penalty system is yet another example of a 
bloated and unsustainable government system. With California's November 
elections quickly approaching, there are two ballot initiatives that deserve 
further investigation before any votes are cast - Proposition 62 and 
Proposition 66. Prop. 62 would repeal the death penalty and replace it with 
life imprisonment without the option of parole (LWOP). Additionally, those 
serving LWOP would be required to work and pay restitution to the families of 
their victims. Prop. 66, on the other hand, would do quite the opposite. Prop. 
66 would keep the death penalty in place and attempt to shorten the appeals 
process.

The effects of instituting Prop. 62 would be largely beneficial - millions of 
dollars would be saved annually and California would no longer risk executing 
an innocent person. Meanwhile, former death row inmates would still be safely 
kept off of the streets under their new LWOP sentencing. Conversely, Prop. 66 
would not only result in more of the same in terms of a huge financial burden, 
but the initiative could also have dangerous repercussions for those sentenced 
to death. By speeding up the appeals process Prop. 66 would heighten the 
potential of executing innocent people. Although costly, the lengthy appeals 
process has been put in place in order to ensure that those sentenced to die 
for their crimes are in fact guilty.

It has taken up to 17 years to release a wrongly convicted person from 
California's death row. Since 1989, 68 individuals in California have been 
wrongfully convicted of murder and later exonerated. State-sanctioned killing 
is a matter that should not be taken lightly. When a life is on the line, there 
is no acceptable margin of error.

The choice between these 2 propositions is clear - one will save California 
taxpayers millions of dollars each year, while the other will cost California 
taxpayers millions. To put this into real terms, the State's independent 
Legislative Analyst determined Prop .62 will save $150 million annually. That's 
$150 million a year that could be put to better use. That money could be 
returned to the taxpayers or it could be redirected into funding for education, 
public safety or crime prevention - all of which would positively impact far 
more lives than California's current spending on the death penalty.

(source: Op-Ed; Katherine Dwyer is a Charles Koch Institute Communications 
Fellow with Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, a Project of 
EJUSA----San Jose Inside)






USA:

Philanthropy And The Death Penalty


Savvy philanthropists know that change takes time. Whatever your political or 
philosophical beliefs, moving the legal or cultural norms of a country is no 
mean feat. A case in point: the campaign against the death penalty in the 
United States. It's an effort to change deeply entrenched values and policy in 
the face of very long odds.

The modern history of the fight to abolish the death penalty in the United 
States began in 1976 when the Supreme Court restored capital punishment, after 
having ruled in 1972 that as then structured it was unconstitutional. In the 
decades following its restoration, which were marked with widespread concern 
about law and order, a large majority of Americans supported capital punishment 
and states continued to impose and administer it. So why did Atlantic 
Philanthropies - one of the nation's biggest foundations - decide to invest 
nearly $60 million over 10 years in a campaign to end the death penalty in the 
United States?

By 2004, based on the success of its earlier anti-death penalty grants and the 
momentum of exonerations grounded in DNA evidence, Atlantic foresaw a turning 
point. In 2005, following the release of the documentary film After Innocence, 
the issue caught the public's attention. Though the death penalty remained 
legal in 38 states, executions had been on the decline for 5 years - down to 59 
annually from a modern peak of 98 in 1999. Atlantic joined the cause by 
partnering with donors and advocates already working to abolish the juvenile 
death penalty - a more modest and achievable goal.

Indeed, in 2005, the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juveniles. 
This was a critical moment. While Atlantic had been only one among a group of 
funders supporting the effort, and not the "first mover" - the Supreme Court 
decision suggested that abolishing the death penalty might ultimately be a 
winnable battle. "Because there was so much traction from the juvenile work," 
explained Atlantic program executive Annmarie Benedict, "we felt that we were 
in a good position to pull the field together with a big bet, and build on the 
lessons we learned as funders and advocates coming out of the juvenile work."

The path to eliminating capital punishment was not yet clear, but the 
successful fight on behalf of juveniles formed a rough blueprint: build 
momentum for abolition at the state level, with a Supreme Court ruling as the 
ultimate goal. Over the next 10 years, Atlantic invested nearly $60 million in 
the effort. Much of this went to a collaborative grant making organization, the 
Proteus Fund. The death penalty is a complex issue: the number of 
jurisdictions, organizations, and funders working in the field make it 
difficult to navigate. By using a trusted intermediary, Atlantic intentionally 
ceded some of its control. In turn, it could rely on experts that the Proteus 
Fund brought to the table.

Importantly, Atlantic also used its Atlantic Advocacy Fund, a 501(c)(4) entity 
that can fund a greater range of advocacy activities than the 501(c)(3) 
structure often adopted by foundations. Atlantic Advocacy Fund dollars could 
support direct lobbying, ballot initiatives, and voter mobilization - where 
more traditional grant funding might be restricted to organizations focused on 
research, litigation, and educational activities.

Policy change on this issue has been striking, though Atlantic's ultimate goal 
remains far from being achieved. Since 2007, 7 states have abolished the death 
penalty, at least partially due to campaigns funded by Atlantic. 4 other states 
have placed formal or informal moratoriums on executions. In 2015, states 
carried out the lowest number of executions (28) and new death sentences (in 
the mid-50s) in modern history. Other factors besides philanthropy have played 
a role, such as dramatically lower crime rates in many jurisdictions, as well 
as highly publicized mistakes, including exonerations based on DNA evidence and 
botched executions. While advocates continue to hope for a Supreme Court ruling 
abolishing the death penalty, there is no way to predict if or when this will 
happen.

Advocacy campaigns are natural platforms for philanthropy, but they require 
extraordinary patience and a willingness to work with others to achieve their 
objectives. It also requires donors to tolerate the risk not merely of coming 
up a bit short, but of achieving nothing at all. This has played out in efforts 
around gun control and abortion, where funders and advocates have not seen the 
needle move significantly for decades. Whether this will become the case for 
abolishing the death penalty is unclear. But it is conceivable to think that 
without funders, like Atlantic, advocates for this cause would not have the 
traction that they now do.

(source: Forbes)