In a remarkable editorial in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, Ron Briggs, the son of Senator John Briggs, admits they were wrong in 1977. “We believed the Briggs initiative – the death penalty measure we wrote in 1977 – would bring greater justice. We were wrong,” he writes.
“In 1977, my dad, former state Sen. John Briggs, my brother-in-law and I got together to discuss California’s death penalty. We agreed it was ineffective and decided a ballot initiative was needed to expand the number of murder categories eligible for capital punishment,” Mr. Briggs recounts in Sunday Op-Ed.
He continued: “We felt such changes would give prosecutors better tools for meting out just punishments, and that a broadened statute would serve as a warning to all California evildoers that the state would deliver swift and final justice.”
He wrote that they thought they were creating a national model for capital punishment, and so on a shoestring budget they collected over a million signatures and put the proposition on the ballot.
“On Nov. 7, 1978, California voters passed the Briggs initiative on the death penalty,” he said.
Mr. Briggs wrote that in those days he served as the Senator’s personal aide and his future brother-in-law was John Briggs’ chief of staff.
Now nearly 35 years later, John Briggs is long since retired, the brother-in-law is a California Superior Court judge, and Ron Briggs is a second-term county supervisor in El Dorado County.
He writes, “Recently, the three of us sat together under a rose trellis in the quiet cool of morning to talk politics. Each of us remains a staunch Republican conservative, but our perspectives on the death penalty have changed.”
He adds, “We’d thought we would bring California savings and safety in dealing with convicted murderers. Instead, we contributed to a nightmarish system that coddles murderers and enriches lawyers. Our initiative was intended to bring about greater justice for murder victims.”
“Never did we envision a multibillion-dollar industry that packs murderers onto death row for decades of extremely expensive incarceration. We thought we would empty death row, not triple its population,” he writes. “Each of us, independently, has concluded that the death penalty isn’t working for California.”
For Ron Briggs, he said it was the office of county supervisor that has shown him the “firsthand experience of the fiscally ruinous effect of our death penalty initiative.”
In Yolo County we have often talked about the potential cost of getting a death sentence for convicted cop-killer Marco Topete.
Mr. Briggs argues, “Each capital case the district attorney files drains about $1 million from local coffers. And that’s just the expense to the county. Much more state and federal money is spent on special incarceration and on appeal after expensive appeal. If a retrial is ordered, our county has to foot the bill all over again.”
He also relates the story of a dear friend whose husband was shot to death in their home and another friend whose son was murdered.
“Every five years they are forced to attend parole hearings for the murderers of their loved ones. The anguish, anxiety and grief in their eyes are indescribable,” he writes.
In another story he tells of a woman who “in 1981 survived being abducted, raped, thrown down a gully naked and shot multiple times. For good measure, her attacker threw rocks at her head. On that same day, the man murdered the woman’s friend.”
“Because of the death penalty system we put in place, the survivor, a fragile mother of three, had to find courage to face her would-be killer again after he weaseled a technical appeal 26 years after the crime, forcing a full retrial here in El Dorado. It yielded the same verdict, and it took a huge human toll on his living victim,” writes Ron Briggs. “If the murderer had been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole rather than to death, the long cycle of appeals could have been avoided.”
These are the stories we do not often hear from people on the right, and from the perspective of people on the right.
It is a valuable story because it is told not from the perspective of the convicted murderer, and not from the perspective of potential innocence, all of which are in fact valuable perspectives to understand crucial concerns. But the story that Ron Briggs relates is the toll that the system plays on the victims and their families.
He writes, “We thought our 1978 initiative created a system to support victims’ families. It didn’t. The only people benefiting today are the lawyers who handle expensive appeals and the criminals who are able to keep their cases alive interminably.”
And we would perhaps prefer to note that, at times, those efforts to keep cases alive interminably, as Ron Briggs puts it, end up buying them enough time to prove their innocence.
“I cannot think of a single turning point in my thinking on the death penalty. My Catholicism teaches me that all life is precious, and that’s certainly part of my viewpoint these days,” Mr. Briggs writes. “But what resonates more in my mind is Dad’s fondness for saying ‘facts are stubborn things.’ With hindsight’s 20-20 vision and three decades of obstinate data, it’s clear to my family that we created a fiscal monster that’s taking a human toll on the very people we wanted to protect.”
“The Briggs death penalty law in California simply does not work,” writes Ron Briggs.
“Had I known then what we do today, I would have pushed for strong life sentences without the possibility of parole,” he argued. “I still believe that society must be protected from the most heinous criminals, and that they don’t deserve to ever again be free. But I’d like to see them serve their terms with the general prison population, where they could be required to work and pay restitution into the victims’ compensation fund.”
“There are few ‘do-overs’ in life, especially in politics. With the death penalty, though, 34 years later I have an opportunity to set things right,” he remarks.
Perhaps the most powerful statement is the last statement: “The Briggs family has decided to endorse the SAFE California campaign, a fall 2012 ballot initiative that would replace the death penalty with a punishment of life without the possibility of parole. The state has another chance at real justice. We should embrace it.”
Given the history of California, who would have ever expected to read that statement?
On July 26, Donald Heller, who actually worked with Briggs to write the Briggs Death Penalty law that was passed by the voters in November 1978, will be one of several featured speakers at the Yolo Judicial Watch Dinner and Awards Ceremony that features a discussion on the death penalty this year.
In addition to Mr. Heller will be Jeanne Woodford, who once served as Warden of San Quentin and now heads up the anti-death penalty group, Death Penalty Focus.
Also sceduled to speak is State Public Defender Ellen Eggers, who represents people on death row, and finally we will be joined by Franky Carrillo, who is rebuilding his life a year after being released, having spent from 1992-2011 in prison for a murder he did not commit. He is still only 37 and has a chance to live a good life, despite this injustice.
It figures to be a powerful night, so be sure to save the date for that event.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I always thought of this ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briggs_Initiative[/url]) as the “Briggs Initiative.”
There were actually two of them – one was the one you were thinking of, Prop 6 and failed, the other was Prop 7 and passed.
[quote]These are the stories we do not often hear from people on the right, and from the perspective of people on the right.[/quote]
The death penalty is not a “left” or “right” issue…
[quote]But I’d like to see them serve their terms with the general prison population, where they could be required to work and pay restitution into the victims’ compensation fund.”[/quote]
Even if we do away with the death penalty, that doesn’t mean that prisoners are going to be allowed to work off some of their debt to society. This is another piece of the criminal justice system that seriously needs to change…
There is little reason to NOT allow condemned inmates to program inside prisons rather than be locked-down 24/7. They are no more violent than other prisoners in prison, and they could work – like other inmates (of course the CDCR has eliminated many work programs of late). Missouri “mainlined” condemned inmates with little problem for a number of years.
“The death penalty is not a “left” or “right” issue… “
How do you figure?
Consistently a heavy majority of Republicans have said in polling that they support the death penalty while a majority of Democrats oppose it.
Now there is emerging a new issue of funding that is probably spread more equally, but to ignore the sharp left-right split on the issue is absurd.
[quote]Now there is emerging a new issue of funding that is probably spread more equally, but to ignore the sharp left-right split on the issue is absurd.[/quote]
You’ve conceded conservatives are coming out in opposition to the death penalty, no? Your problem is that you assume conservatives are represented by Republicans only. Many conservatives don’t agree with all the Republican dogma, just as many liberals don’t agree with all the Democratic talking points…
I wonder if the death penalty is being applied as the initiative was written or is it not working because of what the death penalty has changed into.
Discussion of the death penalty has to include the fact of wrongful conviction. From the recent news, as listed by The Innocence Project.
“(Austin, TX; February 10, 2012) — Today a Texas Judge ruled that there is probable cause to believe that former Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson violated state criminal law by refusing to turn over evidence that contributed to the wrongful murder conviction of Michael Morton. Judge Sid Harle remanded the case to the Chief Judge of the Texas Supreme Court with the recommendation that the state convene a court of inquiry to look into possible prosecutorial misconduct that caused Morton to serve 25 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
…
(Chicago, IL; January 17, 2012) – Four Englewood men were exonerated today after the State’s Attorney’s Office announced that it was dismissing the indictments against the men for a 1994 murder and rape of a sex worker. The decision not to prosecute the four men follows the November 16, 2011, ruling by Cook County Judge Paul Biebel overturning their convictions because of new DNA evidence implicating another man with a long history of murdering and assaulting sex workers.
…
“Chicago, November 3, 2011) After DNA testing linked a rapist to the 1991 rape and murder of a 14-year-old southwest suburban girl, a Cook County Circuit Court judge today set aside the convictions of three men who were convicted of the crime by confessions now known to be false. Robert Taylor, James Harden and Jonathan Barr, all of whom were teenagers when arrested, are represented by the University of Chicago’s Exoneration Project, the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth with private attorney Jennifer Blagg and the Innocence Project.
…”
http://www.innocenceproject.org
“You’ve conceded conservatives are coming out in opposition to the death penalty, no? Your problem is that you assume conservatives are represented by Republicans only. Many conservatives don’t agree with all the Republican dogma, just as many liberals don’t agree with all the Democratic talking points…”
I credit conservatives for that but at the same time they have not been the traditional voice. I could probably find a poll that does the split by conservative and liberal, but in American politics party label is a reasonable proxy measure.
“I wonder if the death penalty is being applied as the initiative was written or is it not working because of what the death penalty has changed into.”
The problems of the death penalty are this – the process takes too long and therefore is very expensive. The problem with streamlining the process is you bump into the causes why the process was dragged out to begin with – appeals and the problems of wrongful convictions and bias and prejudice along with the unequal application. I don’t see how you fix the time and appeals issue if you don’t solve those other issues.
These are the stories we do not often hear from people on the right, and from the perspective of people on the right.
there are plenty of stories we do not hear from people on the left, including the vanguard on all sorts of political issues.
It’s fascinating to see what the Briggs family sees as problems with the death penalty. Their initiative started with the mistaken notions that it deters people from killing and that it provides comfort to the families of murder victims. But, now their troubled by the costs of convicting accused killers and of letting the convicted live while we try to assure they were rightly convicted.
While the deterrence “benefits” have been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked and the value of imposing death penalties for victim’s families’ “closure” is highly questionable, it’s the cash cost that mainly bothers the Brigg’s clan. Not the questions about the morality or wisdom of killing people. Not the fact that that such a system ends up killing innocent people. But, that it costs a lot and it moves too slowly.
Well, you have to take your converts in whatever unlightened states you find them….
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(I may have mentioned this problem before, but how does such an aside get dropped into an otherwise logical and informative story about capital punishment: “In Yolo County we have often talked about the potential cost of getting a death sentence for convicted cop-killer Marco Topete”?
This doesn’t accurately reflect how the Vanguard emphasized issues in his trial and the DA’s decision to try Topete in the first place, misses the point about the death penalty and its place in our justice system and dilutes the stories you’re writing. Come to think of it, my commenting on the incessant Topete’s Death March obsession probably detracts from the points I’m trying to make.)
…But, now they’re troubled by the costs….”