California’s Death Penalty: A Year in Review

California Death Chamber

On November 6, 2012, California voters narrowly defeated Proposition 34, a measure that would have replaced the state’s death penalty with the sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) as the state’s most severe punishment. Prop 34 failed to pass by about 250,000 votes.

Opponents of Prop 34 used a classic political technique to defeat the measure: fear mongering. They told voters that “instead of justice, killers [would] get lifetime housing/healthcare benefits” if Prop 34 passed. Voters were urged to keep the current system of capital punishment in place to “Protect California.” They convinced voters that the death penalty was needed to punish people like “Richard ‘The Night Stalker’ Ramirez [who] kidnapped, raped, tortured and mutilated 14 people and terrorized 11 more including children and senior citizens.”

The voters were duped. On June 17, 2013, after nearly a quarter of a century on death row at great expense to taxpayers, Richard Ramirez died peacefully at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California, where he was receiving treatment for B-cell lymphoma.

For the last 35 years, California taxpayers have funded the state’s so-called “death penalty” to the tune of over $4 billion. Since voters decided to continue funding the state’s sham death penalty system last November, the situation has continued to deteriorate.

One year after California failed by a very narrow margin to replace the death penalty in this state—nothing has changed. California continues to pour millions of dollars down the drain to support a sentence that it does not carry out. Justice is not served. The death penalty remains an illusory promise that makes a mockery of our judicial system. Judges, police officers, victims, clergy, and every day people alike across our state are calling for this farce to end.

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Source: VerdictJustia.com, November 18, 2013