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, I avoid Fox News, my grandfather was even one of those guys who went on an expedition looking for Noah’s Ark (seriously). So I’m pleased to say that the myth of California’s death penalty is widely being exposed, as more and more people realize that a functional and efficient death penalty system belongs firmly in the Not-Reality Column. Death sentences in California are at an all-time low . The Assembly is now considering a bill that would allow voters to replace the death penalty – meaning that the myth is being exposed from prosecutors’ offices to jury deliberation rooms and all the way to the statehouse.According to a new report by the ACLU of Northern California, aptly titled “ California’s Death Penalty is Dead ,” the first six months of 2011 saw only three new death sentences in the entire state, the lowest since the death penalty was reinstated 1978. By comparison, this time last year California had thirteen new death sentences, and that wasn’t out of the ordinary. If the trend continues, by year’s end California may even lose its grim distinction as the nation’s death sentencing leader.
Meanwhile, State Senator Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) signed SB 490, a bill that would give voters a chance to end the myth once and for all by replacing death penalty with a maximum of life without possibility of parole and work and restoration, saving $ 1 billion over five years. The bill was approved by the Public Safety Committee of the Assembly last week and made his way upstairs. If passed, voters will have a choice in the election in November 2012. If you live in California, you can encourage your legislators to support SB 490 here.
This sudden drop in death sentences and the momentum to replace the death penalty with a real public safety solution didn’t just crop up out of nowhere. They're the result of the death penalty’s myths being exposed. Like the myth that executions are cheaper than life sentences; reality: a new study by a federal judge and law school professor showed that the death penalty costs California taxpayers $184 million per year more than life without parole , and each execution costs $308 million. Prosecutors and juries who can recognize reality are winning out.
Then there is the claim that the death penalty provides "closure" to victims' families. File that under "non-reality."
Fact: the death penalty is the opposite of justice swift and sure. Over 900 men and women condemned to die in California only 13 have ever been executed. Family members of victims are dragged through decades of appeals and hearings while waiting for execution, which rarely comes.
Alternatives To The Death Penalty - News
When people learn how much the death penalty costs, how long it takes, how bad it is for victims' families and law enforcement and the budget, they opt for real-world alternatives. An April 2011 poll showed that 63 percent of likely voters want the
One possible alternative to pentobarbital is propofol, a powerful anesthetic and one of the drugs implicated in the 2009 death of singer Michael Jackson. The drug was mentioned as a possible option in documents and testimony in the Kentucky court case
"We have a chance to acknowledge that while revenge will feel right sometimes, it will never make us safer, and it does not help victims' families," Judy Kerr, spokeswoman for California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty,
Stacy Rector, Executive Director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, addressed this very topic. Speaking at a seminar on the subject, Broken Beyond Repair: the Reality of Tennessee's Death Penalty, Rev Rector laid out for her
The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty, with the belief that all life is valuable. In 2010, the California Catholic Conference, composed of the state's Catholic bishops, said life without the possibility of parole is an alternative that protects
Death and Dixie | Louisiana Coalition for Alternatives to the ...
Explores the constitutional problems that arise when a court flies the Confederate flag at its doorstep during a death penalty trial in the South.
In a 2009 death penalty prosecution involving a white victim and a black defendant in Caddo Parish, prospective juror Carl Staples objected to the flying of the Confederate Flag out the front of the courthouse as a “great injustice” that “put[s] salt in the wounds of . . . people of color.
Alternatives To The Death Penalty - Bookshelf
The death penalty in America, current controversies
8 Sentencing for Life: Americans Embrace Alternatives to the Death Penalty RICHARD C. DIETER Contrary to the conventional wisdom that Americans ...The death penalty, beyond abolition
Alternatives to the death penalty - The United Kingdom experience Peter Hodgkinson1 Director, Centre for Capital Punishment Studies, School of Law, ...Against the death penalty, international initiatives and implications
PART III OVERVIEW OF ABOLITION STRATEGIES AND ALTERNATIVES TO THE DEATH PENALTY ...Towards the abolition of the death penalty in Africa, a human rights perspective
The realistic alternatives to the death penalty in Africa have to be decided at the national level, bearing in mind that any punishment has to be fair, ...Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
The Alternatives to the Death Penalty By ARTHUR LEWIS WOOD 1 The most ... The presentation here does not argue for an alternative to the death penalty. ...Casual Report Directory
CUADP: For Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
CUADP works to find alernatives to the death penalty through abolitionist campaigns to stop capital punishment.
Death Penalty Focus
Dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment through grassroots organizing, research, and the dissemination of information about the death penalty and its alternatives.
Unitarian Universalists for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
Unitarian Universalists working together as a people of faith to find alternatives to capital punishment. ... Seeking Alternatives to the Death Penalty ...
Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (UTADP), a statewide coalition of both secular and religious organizations and concerned individuals dedicated ...
OREGONIANS FOR ALTERNATIVES TO THE DEATH PENALTY
In order to repeal the Oregon death penalty, it is necessary to have a favorable vote of the people. ... The mission of Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (OADP) ...