Proposition 34 Still Polling Under 50% But Support Surges – Last week an LA Times poll showed that Proposition 34, which would convert the death penalty in the state of California to life without parole, had pulled within the statistical margin of victory – demonstrating huge gains in a week.
Now the Field Poll, widely regarded as the most accurate of state polls, shows the unthinkable – that Proposition 34 has a lead outside of the margin of error.
Conventional wisdom says that propositions that do not receive 50 percent are likely to fail, but there are several reasons Proposition 34 might buck those odds.
Pollsters Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field this morning note that, while the measure has 45% support and 38% opposition, there is still a large 17% undecided. But most of that undecided has actually developed in the last month, suggesting that the undecided are moving away from the opposition and toward supporting the measure.
The pollsters note that a lot of what is driving this are fiscal considerations, and the proponents of the measure have noted that the death penalty is more expensive than alternatives.
The poll found that a growing number of respondents now agree with this notion.
“When asked about this in the current survey, 53% of likely voters now say the death penalty is more expensive than life in prison, while 31% think it is more expensive to house a convicted felon for life,” the pollsters write.
They note, “This represents a significant change in voter opinion compared to past Field Poll measures.”
A September 2011 Field Poll found slightly more believing life in prison was more expensive than the death penalty (43% to 41%), while in 1989 greater than a two to one majority felt this way (54% to 26%).
“When voters hear our message and they hear the facts, they are much more likely to support the initiative,” said Natasha Minsker, campaign manager. “It really shows that the voters are learning the death penalty is all cost and no benefit.”
The poll’s findings are not surprising with regard to demographics.
Support for repeal is greatest among Democrats, political liberals, and voters living in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Opposition is greatest among Republicans, conservatives, Protestants and voters living in the state’s inland counties, the poll found.
Moreover, the state’s ethnic population are more supportive of the measure than the white non-Hispanic voters.
Latinos are backing Prop. 34 by 15 points, and African-American are about two to one on the Yes side. While Asian-American voters overall are narrowly backing Prop. 34, there are differing opinions within different segments of the Asian- American electorate. For example, there is greater opposition than support among Chinese-Americans and Korean-Americans, while Vietnamese-Americans and voters from other Asian-American segments are more supportive.
While Protestants oppose repealing the death penalty 48% to 30%, a plurality of Catholics are favoring its repeal (47% to 38%). Support for repeal is even stronger among voters affiliated with non-Christian religions (54%) and among voters with no religious preference (60%).
All of this marks a tremendous shift in attitudes on the death penalty. In 1988, Democratic President Nominee Michael Dukakis was hammered over his opposition to the death penalty. Since that point, no national Democratic candidate has come out against the death penalty starting with Bill Clinton – a strong supporter of the death penalty – in 1992.
The Field Poll first asked voters their attitudes toward the death penalty vis-à-vis life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1989.
At that time, they found a 2 to 1 majority “felt implementing the death penalty was cheaper than housing a convicted felon in prison for life.”
That survey also found that 64% of voters were “worried that sentencing someone to life in prison without the possibility of parole didn’t always guarantee that the prisoner wouldn’t some day be released. In addition, when voters were asked how often they thought innocent people were executed, a large majority (64%) felt this happened so rarely as to be unimportant.”
The latest Field Poll shows that attitudes on these matters have changed dramatically over the last two decades.
As stated above, a 53% to 31% majority believes that the death penalty is more expensive to administer than life in prison without parole.
The poll also finds that a plurality of voters are more confident that when someone is sentenced to life in prison without parole it guarantees that they will not be released some day.
Finally, a 47% to 45% plurality of voters also say that too often innocent people are given the death sentence.
The pollsters argue, “The views of voters on these matters are directly tied to the position they are taking on Proposition 34. There is greater than two to one support (62% to 26%) for Prop. 34 among those who believe the death penalty is more expensive than giving a convicted felon criminal life in prison without parole.”
“By contrast, voters who feel the death penalty is cheaper are lining up on the No side, 59% to 27%.”
They add, “Voters who believe sentencing someone to life in prison without parole actually means that a prisoner will not be released during his lifetime, support repealing the death penalty is greater than five to one (74% to 13%). Those who remain skeptical and believe sentencing someone to life in prison doesn’t always assure that the prisoner won’t be released some day are voting No on Prop. 34 by a three to one margin (62% to 21%).”
Finally they add, “Similarly, the growing proportion of voters who believe that innocent people are too often executed support the death penalty’s repeal four to one (67% to 17%). Those who feel this happens so rarely as to be unimportant are on the No side 58% to 27%.”
What does all of this mean?
“It’s certainly an encouraging poll for the Proposition 34 supporters, but it still has a long way to go,” Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said. “It’s got to get above 50 percent, and it’s moving in the right direction.”
He noted that while many measures lose support as voters examine the issue more closely, this one “is actually gaining strength as voters learn more about it.”
What is driving this issue seems to be cost considerations, backed by the polling data presented above.
“The single issue that resonates is cost,” said Don Heller who wrote the current law passed by the voters as an initiative in 1978. “Even when you address the issue of potentially executing an innocent person, it’s the cost that resonates. All of a sudden it’s being brought home, when counties are going bankrupt and cities are going bankrupt, that there’s just not enough money out there.”
However. the opponents of Proposition 34 disagree.
“This poll shows that Proposition 34 continues to be under 50 percent,” said Peter DeMarco, a spokesman for opponents of the measure. “It’s never been above 50 percent since the beginning of the campaign and I think the 17 percent undecided is significantly inaccurate for an issue that is of such familiarity in California.”
But is it? What seems to be happening is that a sizable portion of the opposition to Proposition 34 is moving and that accounts for the high undecided. The question is whether Proposition 34 supporters can finish their sales job by Tuesday to get to the majority.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
UPDATE: This version added a comment from Natasha Minsker.
I sure hope so. It is hard to accept and completely hypocritical that we tell people it is wrong to murder by murdering them.
End State Sponsored Murder. Vote YES on 34.
Most people that are voting against Prop 34 probably think we really have a death penalty in California.
I bet most people don’t know that the guy that rapes and kills your daughter in California and gets the “death penalty” will most likely die of old age…
The “death penalty” in California has become a cash cow/jobs program for a small army of attorneys that make a living off the state fighting the process.
I hope Prop 34 wins, maybe it will be the beginning of true prison reform.
SOD: I’m not sure cash cow is the right term. Most attorneys who work on DP cases are public attorneys who are not making a tremendous amount. There may be a cottage industry for the Death Penalty, but it’s not clear to me who is really profiting from it.
Will Prop 34 supporters sponsor a special wristband or ribbon for potential murder victims to proudly wear so that his or her convicted murderer will be assured to avoid the death penalty after the victims remains are found and identified?
Not following you Mr. Hayes – to what end?
[b]SOUTH:[/b] [i]The “death penalty” in California has become a cash cow/jobs program for a small army of attorneys that make a living off the state fighting the process.”[/i]
[b]VANGUARD:[/b] [i]Most attorneys who work on DP cases are public attorneys who are not making a tremendous amount.[/i]
In California, not counting federal cases, the lawyers on death cases are paid $1,160 per 8-hour day plus expenses. By contrast, on federal cases, the lawyers are paid $1,424 per 8-hour day plus expenses.
While these daily rate numbers seem high to me, the real problem is the length of time the cases take, largely because for years and years nothing at all is happening, while costs are mounting. That is how a few thousand dollars a day gets into the millions of dollars in lawyer costs for every single case.
For a full overview of the costs of the death penalty in California, you can read this 184-page report called ‘EXECUTING THE WILL OF THE VOTERS?’ ([url]http://media.lls.edu/documents/Executing_the_Will_of_the_Voters.pdf[/url]) in the LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES LAW REVIEW by Judge Arthur L. Alarcón*& Paula M. Mitchell**.
* Senior Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
** Adjunct Professor of Law, Loyola Law School Los Angeles, Habeas Corpus and Prisoner Civil Rights Litigation.
“In California, not counting federal cases, the lawyers on death cases are paid $1,160 per 8-hour day plus expenses.”
That sounds like a lot, but, a private attorney typically gets about $300 per hour and a top private attorney gets $500 or more per hour. So $145 an hour is actually not a tremendous amount for an attorney.
One of the reasons DP costs are so high however is that a DP case requires two publicly appointed attorneys rather than just one.
David wrote:
> SOD: I’m not sure cash cow is the right term.
> Most attorneys who work on DP cases are public
> attorneys who are not making a tremendous amount.
I’m not saying they are living on yachts, but when you pay thousands of attorneys that almost all make at least $100K a year fighting death penalty convictions it adds up (like my recent post about all the different California State departments when you spend a million here and a million there pretty soon you are talking about a lot of money)…
CNN Money recently wrote:
> Taxpayers have spent $4 billion since 1978 on California’s
> capital punishment system — and with only 13 executions
> to show for it. That’s about $308 million per execution.
I’ve always been against capital punishment. My main reason to oppose it is that I don’t trust the government (that often screws up when doing something as simple as processing a DMV renewal) to always kill the guilty person. The fact that we are blowing $300 million extra for each execution since 1978 just makes me oppose it even more.
I find it strange that most “conservatives” that will go on and on how the government can’t do anything right generally support the death penalty and don’t seem to worry about innocent people getting killed while most “liberals” that trust the government absolutely to run a health care system and tell us the size of our sodas seem to think that even after spending $308 million we are “always” executing innocent people…
SOD: Overall I agree with your point. I just have a soft spot for public defense attorneys who are not getting rich of their job.
[b]SOUTH:[/b] [i]”… almost all make at least $100K a year fighting death penalty convictions it adds up …”[/i]
Based on a 2,000 hour work-year (which is what I was told the state uses as its base for compensating attorneys on death appeals) they make $290,000 each plus expenses. If there are two working on an appeal, that is of course double that. (The federal equivalent pay is $356,000.)
[b]VANGUARD:[/b] [i]”That sounds like a lot, but, a private attorney typically gets about $300 per hour … “[/i]
I’ll take your word on that. I am sure much depends on competition for services. That is, those few with a great reputation and credentials can command a lot in various areas of the law; lawyers with more mundane reputations and common credentials can command much less per hour. Just because someone is “death qualified” does not mean his reputation or his credentials are top-rate.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the state’s fees for attorneys on death cases does not include ordinary expenses. So if they have routine office costs, the state picks up the bill for those costs. By contrast, the private lawyer who charges his client $300 must pay for his secretaries, his rent, his utilities, et cetera. I would imagine that, if he has any extraordinary expenses, he can bill his client for that too.
Siegel
11/02/12 – 09:45 AM…
Not following you Mr. Hayes – to what end?
In case Prop 34 fails, the ribbons and wristbands could still further the pro-34 cause.
[b]SOUTH:[/b] [i]”I’ve always been against capital punishment. My main reason to oppose it is that I don’t trust the government (that often screws up when doing something as simple as processing a DMV renewal) to always kill the guilty person.”[/i]
That is the George Will argument ([url]http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will012103.asp[/url]). Will likewise has no faith in our government getting things right. [quote]Conservatives, especially, should remember that capital punishment is a government program, so skepticism is warranted. [/quote] My own view is that, in context, we should not be worried that one out of a million people executed might be innocent. I am not saying that I want anyone innocent killed. Just the opposite. And I am not saying that I do not want a thorough review of the facts and evidence used to convict (if the evidence is not strong and solid I would favor reduction to 20 years in prison in the case of conviction, unless a new trial was warranted) and a thorough review of the prcedures used in court. I favor those–they can be completed in 2 years or less if we wanted them to. However, I understand the context.
Here is how I see this context: actively and passively our government makes decisions which result in the deaths of innocent people every day. I don’t see how the value of the life of an inncoent person convicted of a heinous murder is higher than the value of the life of any other innocent who is killed as a result of government policy.
When a homeless mentally ill person, who could have been taken in and housed in a facility for the insane, dies on the streets, that was the result of a government policy choice. It’s not as if the homeless person chose to have severe schizophrenia. Or when another mentally ill man — think of Jared Lee Loughner, who shot Gabby Giffords and 12 others and killed 6 innocents — kills an innocent person, that happens as an indirect result of government policies. It’s not as if Mr. Loughner had any rational idea of what he was doing.
The government makes environmental and safety regulations to greater and lesser extents. Too tight and these can snuff out segments of our economy with severe consequences for those who make their livings in various industries. Too loose and innocents will be hurt and some will dies.
Much more actively, when our government decides to go to war, it is deciding to sacrifice the lives of many of our soldiers and those of our enemies and even understands that innocent civilians will die as a result. Of course, unless you are a pacifist, you understand that there are cases where our not going to war will end up killing even more people*.
Yes, in none of these cases is our government “pulling the trigger” against our own citizens. But for the innocent person who, say, works at the Chevron refinery in Richmond is killed in a firey explosion which would not have happened if the government policy had been to inspect the plant once each year (instead of once every five years) death is death.
*Good examples of going to war to save lives were with our decisions to intervene in Libya and Kosovo. If you think we actively killed more Libyans than would have died otherwise, look at Syria, today, where we are not fighting. More Syrians are dying because we are not more involved. The Libyan war would still be going on today but for our choice to intervene (which, I might add, I opposed on the grounds that getting rid of Ghaddhafi was not worth the cost to us). In Kosovo, the Serbian dictatorship was actively murdering thousands of Kosovars every day. That only stopped because Clinton chose to step in. If we had not bombed innocent Serbian cities, which understandably they decried, a hundred thousand more Kosovars would have been killed and many more would have had to flee their homes.
Rifs
Perhaps I am completely missing your point and if so, please set me straight.
I cannot see a moral equivalence between the death penalty and any of the examples you have sited.
In the of the condemned prisoner. With the condemned prisoner, his death is intentional. While incidental deaths do occur do to lack of inspection, errors of judgement or of regulation, none of these are planned and deliberately carried out.
IN the case of war, even we pacifists understand that sometimes fewer lives will be cost by early forceful action. Again these two situations are not equivalent. The condemned prisoner has already been neutralized and confined, and if need be, for evidence of continued violent behavior can even be maintained in isolation for the safety of others. This is certainly not true of a despot wreaking havoc on his own population, or neighbors.
Finally as a somewhat pragmatic pacifist, I recognize that there are times when force may save lives. What I cannot sanction is that somehow American lives are of greater value than the lives of humans who happen to have been born else where. Nor can I ever sanction a ” “preemptive strike” nor do I believe that it is ever appropriate to use more force than is necessary to protect those in obvious imminent danger.
I do not consider this a position of weakness, but one of strength. I agree with Greg Bruckers statement in favor of an end to state sanctioned killing, which for me only serves retribution and undermines the moral authority of the state.
[quote]Is Prop 34 Poised to Pull Off the Improbable Victory?[/quote]
I sure hope so.
David wrote:
> SOD: Overall I agree with your point. I just
> have a soft spot for public defense attorneys
> who are not getting rich of their job.
Then Rich wrote:
> Based on a 2,000 hour work-year (which is what
> I was told the state uses as its base for
> compensating attorneys on death appeals) they
> make $290,000 each plus expenses. If there are
> two working on an appeal, that is of course double
> that. (The federal equivalent pay is $356,000.)
If Rich’s numbers are correct then it looks like the defense attys are “getting rich” on the job (with pay close to the top 1% and double what an average Davis firefighter makes)…
[b]Meds:[/b] [i]”I cannot see a moral equivalence between the death penalty and any of the examples you have [u]sited[/u].”[/i]
Homonyms are easily mistaken. You meant cited, not sited.
[b]Meds:[/b] [i]”With the condemned prisoner, his death is intentional.”[/i]
As I said above, “Yes, in none of these cases is our government ‘pulling the trigger’ against our own citizens.
But you are wrong to use the word ‘intentional.’ The death may be intentional. But killing an innocent is not.
And to the innocent who is killed as a result of government policy, there is no distinction at all. In either case you have a death as a result of governmentment policy.
Here is an example I recall happening in Sacramento a few years back. Some kids stole a car in Del Paso Heights. A police car spotted the stolen car and gave chase. The chase got up to 110 mph on city streets. That put many dozens of innocents at risk. And in the case I recall, the police car ended up killing three innocent pedestrians.
At the very time that happened, a great number of U.S. cities had decided to stop all high speed chases in cases like this one. They knew that it was a numbers game and that the nearly certain result was the death of innocents. But Sacramento had not yet made that choice. Its [b]intentional[/b] policy was to chase all such car thieves, no matter whom they endangered. The policy makers in Sacramento knew there was a great risk to innocents. It was far higher than the risk to innocents compared with the death penalty. Since no innocents have ever been executed in our state, it is impossible even to place a percentage on how much higher the risk of the urban car chase is. (You cannot divide by zero to compare capital punishment.)
[b]Meds:[/b] [i]”While incidental deaths do occur do to lack of inspection, errors of judgement[/i] (sic) [i]or of regulation, none of these are planned and deliberately carried out.”[/i]
That is total nonsense. Regulations and inspections are planned policies. If you choose not to do them in order to improve safety, you are planning for great harm to innocents by placing them at risk. And the risk is far, far higher for them than it is for an innocent to die due to capital punishment.
[b]Meds:[/b] [i]”In the case of war, even we pacifists understand that sometimes fewer lives will be lost by early forceful action. Again these two situations are not equivalent.”[/i]
That makes no sense. If you are a pacifist, you are so because you believe it is wrong to murder the soldiers of our enemies and to wreak havoc on civilians caught up in the conflict. To those who are killed, they are not less dead by the choice of this policy than the person convicted of a heinous crime who is later executed for it. There are not degrees of being dead.
[b]Meds:[/b] [i]”The condemned prisoner has already been neutralized and confined, and if need be, for evidence of continued violent behavior can even be maintained in isolation for the safety of others.”[/i]
That is a different argument. It may or may not be a moral reason to not have capital punishment. But it has nothing to do with whether other government policies inevitably lead to the deaths of innocent people. They do. In California and other U.S. states, having capital punishment does not lead to the death of innocents ipso fact. However, it does create that risk, however small.
[b]Meds:[/b] [i]”Nor can I ever sanction a ‘preemptive strike,’ nor do I believe that it is ever appropriate to use more force than is necessary to protect those in obvious imminent danger.”[/i]
You can make whatever choices you care to. By choosing to never have a preemptive strike, you could be making a choice where instead of having very few people (or even none at all) die, tens of thousands will die. Here is an historical example of that:
Israel some 20 years ago or so blew up a nuclear power plant that the French were building for Saddam Hussein. I don’t think anyone was killed. Maybe one guard. That was clearly a preemptive strike. Saddam’s intent at that time was to acquire nuclear weapons and he would have used them. He had no moral problem with killing Iraqis, with killing Iranians, with killing Kurds, with killing Turkmen, with killing Kuwaitis, and he got a great kick out of murdering Jews. If he had a nuclear bomb, he would have attacked Israel (which, of course, he did later, but only with Scuds, only killing a few dozen innocnt Jews in those unwarranted missile attacks).
So if you were in charge and you decided there should never be a preemptive attack, tens of thousands or more would have been harmed or killed. And you have every right to think your idea is the moral one. I find that wrong and pathetic.
Rich: “In either case you have a death as a result of [u]governmentment[/u] policy.”
Government, not governmentment.
Rich: “… having capital punishment does not lead to the death of innocents [u]ipso fact[/u].”
Ipso facto, not ipso fact.
Rifs
First, thanks for the homonym correction. I caught it, but only after posting. Keep me honest.
I have to respectfully disagree that determining that we are not omniscient, and do not know what a “friend state” or enemy state will do before the act is committed. However, I see that you have chosen to illustate your point as extremely as possible. I do not believe it is truly “preemptive “
When there has already been the long and colorful history you have so aptly described, and the apparent capability to act. Lacking either factor would place such an attack into the realm of the immoral for me.
Rifs
As for the point about deaths from lack of regulation, failure to onspect…etc. just because you do not agree, does not make a distinction “nonsense. This is part of the reason in medicine that we make a distinction between harm caused by deliberate injection of a lethat substance which in most states is still called murder, and injection of a lethat substance bt carelessness or mistake which would usually be categorized as negligence. The individual is just as dead either way, but our society makes a distinction between a negligent cause of death and a deliberate cause of death. Which is a great thing in the field of medicine, or you would have no doctors brave enough to practice since we are all aware of the possibility of fatal error. I stand by this point whether or not you regard it as “nonsense”.
Rifkin:
“Israel some 20 years ago or so blew up a nuclear power plant that the French were building for Saddam Hussein. I don’t think anyone was killed. Maybe one guard.”
Rifkin your logic is flawed. Besides the fact that more than one person was killed, including a French citizen, your preemptive strike argument depends on the new form of Cold War fears: yes it is the “…OMG THEY ARE MINUTES FROM A NUCLEAR BOMB!” The same one Repugs are using when they talk about Iran. Someday this Cold War / Nuclear Bomb nonsense will be thrown out in the favor of rational scientific knowledge:
“Richard Wilson, a professor of physics at Harvard University who visually inspected the partially damaged reactor in December 1982, said ‘the Osirak reactor that was bombed by Israel in June 1981 was explicitly designed by the French engineer Yves Girard to be unsuitable for making bombs. That was obvious to me on my 1982 visit.'”
DISCO: [i]”Besides the fact that more than one person was killed, including a French citizen …”[/i]
As I said, I was not sure if there were a few deaths or not. All in all, it was a very clean operation, considering it was an act of war.
DISCO: [i]”… your preemptive strike argument depends on the ‘… OMG THEY ARE MINUTES FROM A NUCLEAR BOMB!’ (rationale)”[/i]
In that specific historical example of a successful pre-emptive strike, that is exactly what Iraq wanted Israel to believe and exactly what Israel did believe.
Your calling my logic on this remains unsupported. If you were smart you would see that.
DISCO: [i]”The same one Repugs are using when they talk about Iran.”[/i]
The Iranian president has said it is his intent to wipe Israel off of the map. It would be irrational for Israel or anyone else to not think that the Iranians have bad intentions. They are, after all, funding the attacks on Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah, and they are training and arming the murderous regime next door in Syria. And their soldiers are presently in Damascus fighting on behalf of the murderous regime.
So it is not as if anyone could think of the Iranian government as being peaceful or not a real threat. The Iranian government is evil.
DISCO: [i]Richard Wilson claimed that … the Osirak reactor was designed to be unsuitable for making bombs.[/i]
Even if that was the case, the logic of the strike still made sense.
Saddam wanted Israel to think he was capable of murdering every last Jew in the region with his nukes; and Israel believed Saddam was crazy enough to try. So a pre-emptive strike ended his threat successfully.
Here is what you are not smart enough to understand: The parallel is when a man comes into a bank with a gun and tells everyone to lie on the floor and he demands money from the tellers, but then a police officer comes in the bank and the would-be robber points his gun at the cop. The cop immediately shoots and kills the criminal. That cop is Israel.
But it turns out the criminal’s gun was not loaded, or a fake gun, or one with a broken trigger. None of that matters. The criminal, like Saddam, wanted everyone to believe he was capable of killing them with his weapon.
Everyone in the bank, including the cop at whom he pointed his gun, believed it. The cop, like Israel, had to take pre-emptive action to kill the criminal.
Now your fancy pants boy from Harvard, Mr. Wilson, might later examine the gun and tell us the killing was unnecessary because the trigger did not work or it was not loaded with live bullets, etc.
That did not change the threat at the moment the cop or Israel had to act.
I might add that while you think this is a partisan question–using the term ‘Repugs’–the Obama Administration has been on board with attacking Iran if the Iranians get to the point of a bomb. Also, the U.S. has been using computer viruses to attack the Iranians already. And it is likely that Mr. Obama has been in on the killing of various Iranian nuclear scientists in the last 3 years. So the American perspective is not so partisan as you seem to believe.
Most of what the proponents argue to support the proposition are simply false. The provisions in addition to banning the death penalty achieve nothing, but serve as bribes to get the conservative votes of those who haven’t investigated the proposition thoroughly.
The 729 on death row murdered at least 1,279 people, including 230 children. 43 were police officers. 211 were raped, 319 were robbed, 66 were murdered in execution-style killings, and 47 were tortured. 11 murdered other inmates.
No “savings” & Increased Violence. Alleged savings ignore increased life-time medical costs, which often double during the last 25 years of life and in some cases exceed $1 million a year. The alleged savings also requires housing these killers in less-restrictive prisons where they share cells. Proponents also want to provide them opportunities for work, where they have more freedom, access to other inmates and guards, and more chances to make weapons.
Michael Genest, former State Of California Finance Director, reported:
While I credit the LAO for a fair and impartial attempt to quantify the costs and savings that may result from the enactment of Proposition 34, the savings claims of the proponents of the measure are grossly exaggerated.
The LAO’s official ballot pamphlet analysis pegs the net savings to state and local governments combined at $100 million annually, growing eventually to $130 million. While I think that the LAO made a good faith effort to guess at what the fiscal effects would be, their estimate is based on a few key assumptions about which they acknowledge there is substantial uncertainty and which may well be wrong.
Moreover, the absence of the threat of a death penalty could substantially increase the total number of murder trials by taking away a major incentive for murderers to plead guilty. based on a study by a California organization, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, is that elimination of the death penalty would reduce plea bargains and increase trials in murder cases by 11%. That would mean trials and appeals in over 140 additional murder cases a year, an added expense that could completely eliminate the savings from trying a much smaller number of cases as life-imprisonment rather than capital cases.
No “accountability.” The proponents claim that inmates will have to work and pay their victims. The maximum earnings for any inmate would amount to $383/year (assuming 100% of earnings went to victims), divided by the number of qualifying victims. Hardly accounts for murdering a loved one.
No “full enforcement” as 729 inmates do not receive the penalty given them by jurors. Also, for the 34,000 inmates serving life sentences, there will be NO increased penalty for killing a guard or another inmate. They’re already serving a life sentence. This should scare the hell out of any prison guard. Also, efforts are also being made to get rid of life sentences. (Human Rights Watch, Old Behind Bars, 2012.) On 9/30/12, Brown passed the first step, signing a bill to allow 309 inmates with life sentences for murder to be paroled after serving 25 years. Life without parole is meaningless. Remember Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan. While not released, they have been up for parole several times despite initially receiving a death sentence. Governors are also notorious for releasing inmates who should never be released. Convicted killers get out and kill again, such as Darryl Thomas Kemp, Kenneth Allen McDuff, and Bennie Demps.
Arguments of innocence bogus. Proponents can’t identify one innocent person executed in CA. They can’t identify one person on CA’s death row who has exhausted his appeals and has a plausible claim of innocence. See http://cadeathpenalty.webs.com/ and http://voteno34.org/ for more facts explaining why you should not be supporting Prop. 34.
Rifkin your bias towards Israeli policy clouds your logic on this matter.
Comparing Saddam Hussein to a bank robber with a death wish just clouds it even more. Was Israel being held at gunpoint? The intelligence at the time suggested otherwise.
My point was that pre-emptive strikes serve only political motives, not security ones. You are a fool if you believe scientific rationality and politics go hand and hand.
Lastly, I watched the debates. Romney and Obama would have the same policy on Iran. Romney just talked big during the campaigning- and Obama called him on it. But if Romney’s war mongering rhetoric had struck a chord, his position probably would have been different.