Bye Bye California Death Penalty?

California voters may soon be considering the abolition of the death penalty (again). A Field Poll of California voters a year ago showed Californians still support the penalty by 70%. More on that later. For now, there are 714 inmates on California's death row. The bill would also commute those sentences to life without parole.

In 1978, after California had reinstated the death penalty following a United States Supreme Court decision, the voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure expanding the number of crimes which could result in the ultimate punishment. The measure has been upheld at every appellate level. After conducting lengthy hearings in the Assembly Public Safety Committee, the members voted the new abolition bill out favorably on a 5-2 party line vote, with Democrats in the majority. The Assembly can choose to conduct further hearings, or simply pass the bill on to the State Senate on a simple majority vote.

The State Senate is even more overwhelmingly liberal and anti-death penalty than the Assembly. But as I've mentioned before, these people are not the bravest critters on earth, so rather than pass the measure in the two houses by supermajorities (required for overturning a prior ballot measure), the legislature would merely place the measure on the November ballot for the people to sort out. A simple majority of the people can pass the measure, unlike the requirement in the legislature. As they so often do, the Democrats cloak their reasoning for sending it to the people in terms of "the will of the people," but in reality they simply fear backlash.

To add to the uniquely California mix, Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown is a staunch opponent of the death penalty. That would lead to the conclusion that he will sign the bill without hesitation. Except for one thing. The Corrections Officers Association (union) and the police unions vehemently oppose the measure, and they are major contributors to his campaigns. President of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, Ron Cuttingham, said "the measure will put a target on the back of my members and every peace officer in California because criminals know they will only face 'three hots and a cot' for killing an officer."

The proponents of the measure took into account an in-depth study published by the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review which concluded that over $4 billion in state and federal funds have been spent to administer the death penalty since its reinstatement, and that in 2009 alone, it cost taxpayers $184 million more to have the death penalty than not to have it. Several other witnesses cited similar figures, and the Democrats on the committee stated that they relied heavily on that information for their decision. Oh, now they discover fiscal responsibility, but only when it supports one of their pet causes.

Several opponents of the bill testified that the study's figures were probably pretty close to being right, but nevertheless this was the wrong place to cut costs. Their position is that cost should be the least of considerations when punishing the criminals who commit unspeakable crimes. Many testified that the cost problems related to the insane appellate processes that keep clearly guilty convicted murderers (often convicted of multiple murders) on death row for decades rather than to the costs of the penalty itself. Since 1978, the state has only executed 13 of the convicts, and 78 have died of natural causes or prison violence. That leaves over 600 convicted killers biding their time on the taxpayers' money. And that doesn't even include the lawyers fees run up on appeals, most of which are processed by state-employed public defenders.

In another "only in California" development, two very influential witnesses stood for repeal of the death penalty. Both had previously supported it, and not in a small way. Don Heller spoke in favor of the abolition, and he wrote the 1978 ballot measure that reinstated the death penalty and added several "special circumstances" to the previous list of capital crimes.

Jeanne Woodford, who testified in favor of the penalty on several prior occasions, now opposes the penalty. She is the former warden of San Quentin, where death row resides, and former Director of the Department of Corrections. She said "it is wasteful and counterproductive to public safety to spend our precious resources pretending that we have a death penalty when we know the sentence will not be carried out 99% of the time."

I understand the arguments, but I find it hard to agree with them. I believe in the death penalty. I also question how one places an "optimum cost-benefit" analysis on crimes that strike so deeply into the fabric of society. The appellate process could be cut drastically, and the United States Supreme Court has already exhibited a willingness to limit the number of appeals available as well as a willingness to require that all issues on appeal be exhausted in the state court or a federal court rather than the current method of exhausting state appeals first, then starting over at the federal level.

The cost of trials might be reduced somewhat by no longer having a separate penalty phase for the death penalty, but the savings would be minimal. The cost of incarceration would likewise not be changed to any great degree just because the criminals will now live out their miserable lives in the general population or administrative segregation rather than on death row. I understand practical considerations, but I don't understand fiscal responsibility in relation to horrendous crimes in a state which passes nearly unrestricted green initiatives, pumps money into the public sector to build electric cars and high-speed trains, and destroys nearly the entire agricultural portion of the state economy over a lousy fish.

And now, for that promised "more on that later." A poll on the proposed bill and referendum taken by the San Francisco Chronicle in the Bay Area produced the following results: 48% said "no, it's time to actually use the death penalty." 28% said "yes, it's expensive and rarely-enforced." And a predictable 24% said "civilized places don't have a death penalty." Now I think it's a fair assumption that at least 20% of those who support abolition because it's expensive and rarely-enforced would be in the "keep it" column if those costs were reduced and the penalty enforced expeditiously. Add that 20% to the total, and you now have 53.6% favoring retaining the death penalty in the most liberal geographical area of the state.