Page 38 of 45 FirstFirst ... 283637383940 ... LastLast
Results 371 to 380 of 449

Thread: California Capital Punishment News

  1. #371
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    643
    Jerry Brown to his credit didn't appoint outspoken liberals like he did in his first two terms (Rose Bird) in his final two terms. Leondra Kruger and Joshua Groban both tend to be conservative on criminal cases. Goodwin Liu and Cuellar are both moderately liberal.

    It remains to be seen if Newsom will appoint outspoken liberals like himself.

    And to be clear, the governor of California can commute any sentence he wants but if the inmate has multiple felony convictions the California Supreme Court must concur. This includes death row inmates which make up more than half.

  2. #372
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2020
    Posts
    1,248
    Had Meg Whitman won in 2010, California would be very different today. Had Schwarzenegger’s popularity remained steady she would’ve been elected.

  3. #373
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    643
    California hasn't elected a non celebrity GOP governor since 1994, some blame Propositon 187 for being the cause.

    Steve Cooley came close to winning in 2010 as well, that would've made a difference since AG Harris dragged her feet defending the DP in court.

    In any case, this underscores how State Supreme Courts are just as important as the US Supreme Court since many of their decisions are unreviewable by the US Supreme Court.

  4. #374
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2020
    Posts
    1,248
    It’s a depressing thought I really wish they could review Washington States, Connecticut, and Delaware’s death penalty decisions. The liberal activists on the courts in those states were responsible for the death penalty’s demise. I always wondered why prosecutors never appealed to the Us Supreme Court when Connecticut’s Bill was not retroactive. Also, Matthew Denn chose not to appeal to the Supreme Court over Delaware’s death penalty law being struck down. Washington’s never had a chance to survive given the liberal activist as attorney general.
    Last edited by Neil; 01-19-2020 at 11:18 AM.

  5. #375
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    643
    The Supreme Court can only review state Supreme Court decisions if they involve federal law. Since all of those decisions involved the State Consitution they can't be appealed to SCOTUS.

    The death penalty is in the California Consitution, so while I'm not sure the new California Supreme Court majority could find the practice itself unconstitutional under the state Consitution, they could start striking down all death sentences just like the Rose Bird court, many decisions of which would be unreviewable.

  6. #376
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Fact's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    486
    The death penalty is in the California Constitution as an exception to the cruel and unusual punishments clause.

    Even the craziest liberal couldn't claim that it violates the state constitution.

    In fact, if they did try to strike it down, you could argue (very strongly) that because the text of the California Constitution's cruel and unusual punishments clause explicitly makes this distinction and the U.S. Constitution does not, any declaration by the California Supreme Court declaring the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment is necessarily interpreting the Eighth Amendment as a functional matter.
    Last edited by Fact; 01-19-2020 at 01:21 PM.

  7. #377
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    California to move some condemned inmates off death row

    By Don Thompson
    AP

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More than 700 condemned inmates on California's largest-in-the-nation death row soon will have a chance to transfer to one of eight state prisons, a move a former district attorney termed “a slap to the face" of victims.

    The voluntary transfers from San Quentin State Prison’s all-male death row to other high-security prisons could benefit condemned inmates not only with more freedom and a change of scenery, but provide an opportunity to participate in rehabilitation and work programs.

    That may sound like another in a series of steps California lawmakers and voters have taken in recent years to reduce criminal penalties. But it actually was part of a ballot initiative voters narrowly approved four years ago to try to speed up executions.

    The state hasn’t executed anyone since 2006 but voters have continued to back the death penalty even as they reduced many drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and allowed for the earlier parole of thousands of inmates.

    Former San Bernardino District Attorney Mike Ramos, co-chairman of the Proposition 66 committee that backed the 2016 initiative, said this isn’t what voters intended when 51% favored quicker executions by assigning more lawyers to death sentence appeals and shifting some appeals to trial court judges.

    Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium when he took office last year that he said would last as long as he is in office.

    Victims’ families “suffer every day,” Ramos said. “Now to say that this murderer is going to be allowed to go to a rehabilitation program and be treated like any other low-grade inmate is a slap to the face.”

    Criminal Justice Legal Foundation legal director Kent Scheidegger, who helped write Proposition 66, said proponents didn't intend to coddle condemned inmates.

    “One of the arguments made against the death penalty was it cost too much to house them at San Quentin, which is an antique facility. Our response was, well, they don’t need to be housed there,” Scheidegger said. “It was more to defuse one of the contrary arguments.”

    There's not much point in trying to rehabilitate condemned inmates, he said: "Unless they get pardoned, they’re not going to be seeing the outside of the prison walls anyway.”

    The nonpartisan legislative analyst at the time said the transfers could save money because of increased security costs at San Quentin. Inmates on death row are housed one to a cell and generally are handcuffed and escorted by one or two correctional officers whenever they are outside their cells.

    At the other prisons, they’ll be housed with non-condemned inmates and participate in programs and other activities.

    Condemned women are housed at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and will have to stay there because it’s the only women’s prison surrounded by a lethal electrified fence. But those 22 women can transfer to alternate housing within the prison and, like the men, participate in rehabilitation and work programs.

    Democratic Assemblyman Marc Levine said it’s ironic that death penalty supporters included the provision in their bid to speed executions, but now are unhappy with the results.

    “That they also voted to allow rehabilitation services is poetic justice and reveals just how broken and beyond repair the death penalty is,” he said.

    Levine is lobbying legislators to put a new measure on the November ballot asking voters, for the third time in eight years, to end capital punishment.

    Corrections officials dismantled the state’s newly built $853,000 execution chamber at Newsom’s direction, but continued developing what they are calling a two-year pilot program to allow the transfers off death row.

    “We’re carrying out this part of the law,” corrections department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said.

    The condemned inmates will face psychological, physical and security evaluations, the same as any other inmate, to determine their appropriate housing. The only ones immediately ineligible are those in disciplinary segregation or those who have committed serious offenses within prison in the last five years.

    Prison administrators and researchers plan to evaluate the program over the two years, tracking the number of participants, the number with jobs, inmates’ behavior, and any effect on prison safety.

    The ballot measure requires that 70% of anything they earn will go to a restitution program for victims and survivors, up from the 50% restitution rate for other prisoners.

    “One of the thoughts behind Prop 66, there’s no reason death row inmates can’t work and earn some small income, and that small income can go to the victim’s family,” Scheidegger said. “It’s not going to be much but at least it can be symbolic.”

    Ramos countered: "I don’t know of one family that’s going to want one cent from someone who took their loved ones.”

    The department hopes to start the program within 60 days, but can't say when the first inmate will move or how many will participate, because it’s voluntary, Thornton said.

    Crime Victims Alliance director Christine Ward accused Newsom of breaking what she said was his promise to crime victims after his moratorium to “take no further action regarding the status of condemned inmates.”

    She said the move endangers prison employees, other inmates and the public because “condemned inmates have nothing to lose if they commit acts of violence.”

    https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/...19374ce67.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  8. #378
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2020
    Posts
    1,248
    This is ridiculous this is just like Prop 8. The left is ridiculous with their judicial activism. The proponents of prop 66 should appeal Newsom’s execution freeze. They might have a shot now. The 9th circuit has gotten much more conservative. If they fail there, they could overturn at the Supreme Court. We the people are in charge not the other way around. To be fair, the judge that blocked prop 8 was a judge put there by a HW Bush.
    Last edited by Neil; 02-15-2020 at 10:43 PM.

  9. #379
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    The governor literally had the execution equipment taken out of SQ he would just keep placing more and more roadblocks. The local and district court judges would stop any restart anyway they been bias against the dp since the start of the era.
    Last edited by Mike; 02-15-2020 at 11:41 PM.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  10. #380
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2020
    Posts
    1,248
    Gavin Newsom was always a liberal rat he has been the most liberal politician in state history. Even more so than Brown and his father. What happened to the blue dog democrat days?
    Last edited by Neil; 02-15-2020 at 11:43 PM.

Page 38 of 45 FirstFirst ... 283637383940 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •