Same Poll Finds Three Strikes Reform Passing Overwhelmingly – Last week, the LA Times-USC Poll found that support by voters to repeal the death penalty has increased dramatically, which puts the measure in range, though not enough at this point to actually ensure its passage, as support still falls below the critical 50 percent threshold.
The gap is just three points – 42 percent in favor of its passage (which would end the death penalty) and 45 percent against, with a critical 12 percent undecided.
Just a month ago, that gap was 13 points, with 51 percent favoring keeping the law while 38 percent supported repealing it.
Interestingly enough, there was nearly an identical percentage of undecideds in September. What dropped dramatically was, in fact, support for the death penalty.
“There is no question there has been a sharp shift,” said Dan Schnur, who heads the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.
However, he said that while passage is not impossible, it is still very difficult.
Moreover, after voters heard more information about Prop 34, including the fiscal issues and the impact on prisoners, responses flipped to 45 percent in favor of and 42 percent against passage.
The good polling news comes the same week that the California Wrongful Convictions Project gave supporters of ending the death penalty new fodder when they announced that their research found that at least 200 wrongful convictions have been thrown out since 1989 in California, costing those convicted more than 1,300 years of freedom and taxpayers $129 million.
Their campaign points to hundreds of innocent people that they believe have been wrongfully convicted of serious crimes in California, including Franky Carrillo, one of the featured speakers at the Vanguard’s Death Penalty Event in July. Mr. Carrillo was 16 when he was arrested and wrongly convicted of murder in Los Angeles. It took 20 years to prove his innocence.
Now supporters of Proposition 34 have hard data on the numbers of wrongfully-convicted individuals, and they wasted little time last week utilizing that data.
“This research shows that our criminal justice system makes mistakes more often than we think With 200 wrongful convictions and counting, just since 1989, it is clear that our justice system is deeply flawed.,” said Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin prison, where she presided over four executions.
“We simply don’t know if California has executed an innocent person or how many innocent people are on death row right now. The only way to ensure that we never execute an innocent person is to pass Proposition 34,” she added.
Proposition 34 would commute all death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole, requiring convicted murderers to work in prison and contribute to victim restitution funds, and directing $100 million to law enforcement over four years.
California has more than 727 inmates on death row, the most in the nation, but only 13 inmates have been put to death since the death penalty was reinstated.
“This poll shows, once again, that more and more California voters are ready to replace our broken and outrageously expensive death penalty system,” said Jeanne Woodford, official proponent for the ballot initiative and a former warden of San Quentin State prison who oversaw four executions.
She added: “Proposition 34 stops the waste of taxpayer dollars on special housing and lifetime legal counsel for death row inmates. It will save California $130 million each year and directs a portion of the savings to law enforcement to solve more crimes.”
In 1978 Don Heller helped write California’s Death Penalty law for Senator Briggs. But now he no longer believes in the law he once crafted.
“When I wrote it, I was absolutely certain beyond any doubt that what I was writing was morally right, was constitutionally sound, and would bring justice to people that deserved to be executed for heinous homicides,” he said. “I’ve gone from certainty to change.”
He cites “empirical evidence that the death penalty was not working as intended” as his impetus for changing his views. “It doesn’t work and it costs a fortune,” he added.
Mr. Heller noted that under the law, we have only executed 13 people at the cost of over $330 million per execution. “We are causing huge expenditures of money for no reason,” he said.
“The process takes years. I never thought it would take that long for an execution. I never thought it would take that much money,” he added.
PROPOSITION 36 – THREE STRIKES REFORM OVERWHELMING FAVORED
At the same time, Proposition 36, which would make modest modifications to the three strikes laws – preventing non-dangerous and non-sex offense third felonies from being life sentences – is passing overwhelmingly with 63 percent in favor and just 22 percent opposed.
“Unless the opponents can convince voters that the criminals being impacted by this measure are still dangerous, the initiative looks pretty safe at this point,” Mr. Schnur said.
“The three-strikes law allows prosecutors to seek sentences of 25 years to life for any felony if offenders were previously convicted of at least two violent or serious crimes, such as rape or residential burglary,” the LA Times explained. “Proposition 36 would amend the law so offenders whose third strikes were relatively minor felonies, such as shoplifting or drug possession, would no longer be eligible for life terms. Of the state’s nearly 8,900 third-strikers, about a third were convicted of drug or minor property crimes.”
The measure is backed heavily by LA District Attorney Steve Cooley, who ran for Attorney General in 2010 against Kamala Harris and whom the Sacramento Bee called “no bleeding heart.”
He argued in an op-ed last week, “Many crimes are punishable as felonies but not labeled as serious or violent by the penal code.”
“In 1999, when I first ran for district attorney of Los Angeles County, I issued a campaign position paper in which I pledged to issue a new three-strikes policy for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,” he wrote.
He believes the three-strikes law can be improved and that Proposition 36 “will accomplish this reform.”
“Generally, it requires that the new felony offense be serious or violent for an offender with two prior strikes to receive a 25-to-life sentence,” he argues. “Twenty-five years to life in prison for someone convicted of a relatively minor new felony is not consistent with the goals and ethical values of the determinate sentencing law, i.e., proportionate sentencing, evenhandedly applied.”
“Importantly, Proposition 36 provides an efficient remediation mechanism for 25-to-life sentences imposed in some nonserious/nonviolent new felony cases, primarily during the early years of the three-strikes law. It allows courts to revisit these early sentences. There is nothing automatic that requires a judge to resentence someone who petitions the court to take a second look,” DA Cooley adds.
He argues, “Contrary to the position of the California District Attorneys Association, passage of Proposition 36 will not ‘potentially result in the release of thousands of criminals with long histories of committing serious or violent crimes, including residential burglaries, armed robberies, and vehicular homicides.’ “
Instead he argues, “If Proposition 36 were to pass, dangerous criminals will not necessarily be set free. A judge must determine that the inmate is no longer an unreasonable threat to public safety.”
He adds, “Proposition 36 reduces the potential of coerced plea bargaining.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
