It’s Time to Dump California’s Death Penalty by Passing Prop. 34
Officially, Proposition 34 is about whether to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life in prison. But that’s not the pertinent question.
The death penalty already effectively has been abolished in California. Capital punishment exists only in fantasyland. Condemned killers essentially have been living out their natural lives behind bars.
The relevant question is whether we should keep pouring tax money down a rat hole, feeding a broken system that shows no signs of ever being fixed.
California has executed only 13 people in the last 34 years, and none since 2006. A study last year found that the state had spent $4 billion to administer capital punishment since 1978. That’s about $308 million per execution.
So for me, Prop. 34 is not about the merits of capital punishment. It’s about whether we should keep paying extravagantly for something we’re not getting.
The November ballot measure is relatively simple compared to most other initiatives. It would repeal California’s death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
It would apply retroactively to the 729 convicted killers already sentenced to death. They and future murderers would be tossed into the general prison population and treated like other convicts — double-bunked and required to work.
Current death row inmates at San Quentin are relatively coddled — in their own private cells with personal TVs and extensive access to the recreation yard.
“They’re allowed to go to the exercise yard seven days a week, up to six hours a day, or they can lay in their cell and watch TV seven days a week if they want,” says Jeanne Woodford, a former San Quentin warden and ex-director of the state corrections department. She’s a leading proponent of Prop. 34.
“They don’t work because there’s no work for death row inmates. So they’re not required to pay restitution to victims’ families.” They would be under Prop. 34.