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Thread: California Death Penalty Referendum (SAFE California Act)

  1. #31
    Senior Member Member Jeffects's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Heidi View Post
    Database: Who's Funding Prop 34, the Death Penalty Repeal?

    Prop 34 would put an end to the death penalty in California, convert inmates on death row to a term of life in prison without possibility of parole (while putting them to work with any earned income going to victims), and give law enforcement agencies $100 million in homicide and rape assistance.
    I don't want Richard Ramirez working to help out victims. I want him DEAD. Plain and simple.

    (as well as his disgusting room-mates)

  2. #32
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Heidi View Post
    Database: Who's Funding Prop 34, the Death Penalty Repeal?

    Prop 34 would put an end to the death penalty in California, convert inmates on death row to a term of life in prison without possibility of parole (while putting them to work with any earned income going to victims), and give law enforcement agencies $100 million in homicide and rape assistance.
    Sounds great right? How are they going to deal with inmates claiming innocence? They can not force them to work.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #33
    Banned TheKindExecutioner's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jeffects View Post
    I don't want Richard Ramirez working to help out victims. I want him DEAD. Plain and simple.

    (as well as his disgusting room-mates)
    AMEN to that!

  4. #34
    CBernstien
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    The arguments in support of the ballot measure to abolish the death penalty are exaggerated at best and, in most cases, misleading and erroneous. Proposition 34 is being funded primarily by a wealthy, left-wing company out of Chicago, the ACLU, and similarly-oriented trust funds. It includes provisions that would only make our prisons less safe for both other prisoners and prison officials and significantly increase the costs to taxpayers due to life-time medical costs, the increased security required to coerce former death-row inmates to work, etc. The amount “saved” in order to help fund law enforcement is negligible and only for a short period of time. Bottom line, the “SAFE” Act is an attempt by those who are responsible for the high costs and lack of executions to now persuade voters to abandon it on those grounds. Obviously, these arguments would disappear if the death penalty was carried forth in accordance with the law. Get the facts at and supporting evidence at http://cadeathpenalty.webs.com and http://waiting4justice.org/.
    Last edited by CBernstien; 07-31-2012 at 10:04 PM. Reason: Updated

  5. #35
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    GUEST OPINION: Sometimes seeking justice demands the death penalty

    By JEFF REISIG and GUADALUPE DIAZ

    On June 15, 2008, Father's Day, Deputy Tony Diaz was murdered by Marco Topete when Topete fired an assault weapon 17 times at Diaz, penetrating his bullet proof vest and fatally striking him in the chest.

    At the time of the shooting, Topete was on parole from state prison for shooting an unarmed man in front of a convenience store in 1998. He was also a validated gang member and had been previously convicted of multiple felonies under California's three-strikes law.

    Diaz had attempted to contact Topete for violating parole by drinking and driving with his infant in his car. Topete led Diaz on a 100 mile-per-hour chase before abandoning his car and baby on a dark dirt road in rural Yolo County. Instead of pursuing Topete on foot, Diaz stayed with Topete's abandoned baby.

    Minutes later, Topete, who was lying in wait behind the corner of a building with an assault weapon, opened fire while Diaz had his back to him. In October 2011, a jury convicted Topete of murder with multiple special circumstances and sentenced him to death. At the time of his murder, Deputy Tony Diaz was 37 years old. He is survived by his children, parents, siblings and many other family members, friends and loved ones.)

    There are some murders that are so horrific that we, as a democratic society, have concluded that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment. The voters in California approved of the current death penalty law in 1978. Despite the will of the people, the American Civil Liberties Union and its allies have waged a relentless attack on public safety for decades, with a goal of overturning the death penalty. Their approach has been shameful and costly, in dollars and pain for victims.

    We are writing as the Yolo County District Attorney and the sister of Tony, who was mercilessly assassinated by a vicious murderer. We want California to know who's behind the effort to abolish the death penalty. And, we simply want the truth to be told.

    The ACLU and its agents are responsible for endless delays in the criminal justice system, frivolous appeals and a mountain of misinformation. And now, they claim the death penalty is irrevocably broken and costly and should be repealed.

    This November, Californians will vote and hopefully reject the false campaign being marketed by the ACLU and its allies. The reason is that Californians don't want the most violent and heinous murderers in our society to escape justice: 235 rapists/sexual assault murderers, 225 child murderers, 90 torture murderers, and 43 cop killers.

    Lawrence Bittaker raped, tortured and killed five teenage girls. Richard "the Nightstalker" Ramirez murdered 13 innocent people in Los Angeles, sexually assaulting, torturing and mutilating many of his victims. Richard Allen Davis kidnapped, raped and strangled 12-year-old Polly Klaas. Serial killer Robert Rhoades kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered 8-year-old Michael Lyons as he walked home from school.

    These are just some of the criminals who have earned a death sentence in California due to the horrific nature of their crimes against humanity and society. Each of them received due process through the many checks and balances of the criminal justice system and were justly convicted and sentenced to death. Governor Jerry Brown himself has recently stated that he has not seen any evidence that there are any innocent inmates on California's death row. These sadistic murderers are the ones that the ACLU wants you to save in November.

    Sadly, the proponents of this latest effort to repeal the death penalty have masked their intentions in a supposed concern for the state budget. Don't be fooled.

    It is precisely because of the actions of the ACLU and other opponents to the death penalty that the delays and costs of capital punishment are what they are today.

    Quite simply, they have created the issues that they now rely upon in their misleading campaign to reverse the will of the People. Moreover, their promises of savings are deceptive and wrong. Even without the death penalty, taxpayers must still pay for a lifetime of prison confinement and skyrocketing health care costs to make sure all convicted criminals stay healthy in prison. This will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually as the current 725 most evil murderers on death row, and the many more to come in the future, live out their lives in California institutions before dying of old age.

    In fact, the only objective study on the issue of costs associated with the death penalty, conducted by the non-partisan Rand Corporation in 2008, does not even support the death penalty opponents' claims. There is simply no solid evidence that eliminating the death penalty and replacing it with life in prison will save taxpayers money.

    Also, any suggestion that eliminating the death penalty and converting all current death row inmates to life in prison will make California safer defies logic, practical experience and history in California.

    The deadly criminals that have made their path to death row pose a unique risk to the free men and women working inside our state prisons every day. From correctional officers to prison nurses, doctors, counselors, food workers and others, all face the daily threat from these heinous killers. Eliminating the death penalty will simply grow this dangerous population of murderers and create expanding daily dangers for all involved in watching over them. And surely, it will ultimately result in the need for new, and undoubtedly expensive, super-max prison facilities to house the growing army of ultra-violent killers.

    It is also impossible to ignore the fact that poor political decisions may result and have resulted in the unwise release of convicted killers. For example, former California Governor Edmund "Pat" Brown commuted the sentence of several death row inmates, including Norman Whitehorn and Eddie Wein, both of whom were later paroled, only to kill again. For reasons such as this, creating a growing warehouse of convicted killers that will be subjected to potential political foolery is simply too risky.

    Finally, for the more than 723 murder victims and their families, like Yolo County deputy sheriff Tony Diaz and his family, that have endured so much as their cases have weaved their way through the courts, the ACLU and its allies behind the initiative to repeal the death penalty now stand poised to steal justice from them in a final act of dishonor. That's not justice, it's criminal.

    Voters know better. Long ago, the citizens of this state overwhelmingly voted to support the death penalty in the most heinous of all murders. The justifications have not changed. While legal processes can and should be improved and frivolous delays and meritless appeals should be stopped, the need for victims and an orderly society to seek the ultimate punishment in certain horrific murder cases carries on as before.

    As a public safety leader and a crime victim survivor, we are committed to doing everything in our power to make sure truth and justice prevail and that crime victims and their memory are never dishonored nor forgotten. We trust that the voters in November will not be fooled.

    -- Jeff Reisig is the Yolo County district attorney and Guadalupe Diaz is the sister of murdered Yolo County deputy sheriff Jose "Tony" Diaz.

    http://www.dailydemocrat.com/guestop...-death-penalty

  6. #36
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    D.A.s & Cops Challenge Ballot Language

    District attorneys, police chiefs and sheriffs claim in court that language in the Proposition 34 ballot measure, which would repeal the state's death penalty, falsely suggests that the law would save taxpayers more than $100 million.
    California District Attorneys Association President Carl Adams and the district attorneys of Los Angeles, Sacramento and Fresno Counties sued Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Attorney General Kamala Harris and two other state officials, in Superior Court.
    The presidents of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, the State Sheriff's Association and the California Police Chiefs Association filed a similar complaint in the same court.
    Citations in this story come from the district attorneys' complaint. It states: "The Title and Summary contains the following biased, false and misleading statement: 'Directs $100 million to law enforcement agencies for investigations of homicide and rape cases.' This statement is false and misleading because it fails to inform voters that this $100 million would result from a transfer of existing funds from the State's General Fund."
    The complaint states: "Proposition 34 is a measure to terminate the death penalty as a punishment, and to modify the sentences of the persons already sentenced to death to life without possibility of parole. Proposition 34 also appropriates $100 million from the state general fund for a discretionary fund, the SAFE California Fund, for the Attorney General's distribution to law enforcement agencies."
    The plaintiffs say the word "appropriates" in the previous sentence it misleading.
    "As the impartial summary prepared by the Legislative Analyst's Office points out, the predicted $100 million 'savings' is only approximate, may be off by tens of millions of dollars, and does not all accrue to the State General Fund (since many of the supposed savings, in trial costs, accrue to local governments)," the complaint states.
    The district attorney want the ballot description changed, to read: "'Appropriates [or transfers] $100 million to law enforcement agencies for investigations of homicide and rape cases.'"
    Prosecutors also challenges another statement in the ballot pamphlet: "'States that persons found guilty of murder must work while in prison as prescribed by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, with their wages subject to deductions to be applied to any victim restitution fines or orders against them wages subject to deductions to be applied to any victim restitution fines or orders against them.'
    "This statement is biased, false and misleading because, as the legislative analyst's impartial analysis states, Proposition 34 does not change existing prison regulations that allow prisoners who are security risks to be excepted from existing work requirements."
    The district attorneys also want to change the ballot title, to state: "'Repeals death penalty, replacing it with life imprisonment without parole.'"
    The prosecutors are represented by Charles Bell, with Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk. The police chiefs and sheriffs are represented by the same firm.
    Also named as defendants are Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor and interim State Printer Kevin Hannah

    http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/08/06/49009.htm
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  7. #37
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Judge upholds rulings in CA death penalty ballot wording



    Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley today affirmed two tentative decisions he issued on the death penalty ballot measure. One maintains the wording on the initiative's ballot label and title and summary. The other orders a slight change in the ballot arguments.

    The judge reaffirmed his position in the tentative decision that there was nothing misleading in the state attorney general's wording on the ballot label and in the title and summary of Proposition 34.

    The Nov. 6 ballot measure would repeal the death penalty in California. The challenge to the wording was presented by the state prosecutors' association as well as district attorneys Jan Scully of Sacramento, Steve Cooley of Los Angeles and Elizabeth Egan of Fresno.

    In a second petition filed by prosecutors and statewide police management and rank-and-file groups, Frawley ordered that the death penalty opponents who qualified the measure for the ballot cannot say in their arguments that the initiative "redirects" $100 million in general fund money to front-line law enforcement from savings generated by the elimination of capital punishment.

    Frawley said the $100 million appropriation would be "unrelated to ... any savings achieved by Propostion 34." He ordered the Secretary of State's Office to change the wording from "redirects" to "directs." Deputy Attorney General Ryan Marcroft said he would have no problem with the change.

    http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalert...t-wording.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  8. #38
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    DEATH PENALTY: DA’s union gives money to fight repeal

    The union representing Riverside County’s deputy district attorneys is among the top contributors against a November ballot measure to abolish California’s death penalty, according to a non-partisan website focused on ballot propositions.

    MapLight Voter’s Edge reports that the Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Association has given $5,000 to fight Proposition 34, which would end capital punishment for those convicted of first-degree murder and replace it with life imprisonment without parole.

    The measure would apply retroactively to California’s death row prisoners – nearly 730 inmates in all. They would have to work while in prison and their wages would go to victim restitution. The measure also creates a $100 million fund for law enforcement to solve murder and rape cases.

    The association in June publicly announced its opposition to Prop 34. “Abolishing the death penalty is not only dangerous to the citizens of Riverside County and California, but it also will drive up prison costs at a time when California is facing a severe budget shortage,” associate Vice President Michael Hestrin said at the time.

    Riverside County has 74 inmates on death row, about 10 percent of the total population and trailing only Los Angeles County in the number of condemned inmates.

    California hasn’t executed an inmate since 2006 and only 13 have been put to death since 1992. Executions are being held up as a federal judge studies the legality of the state’s lethal injection process.

    The Peace Officers Research Association of California is the top anti-Prop 34 donor, having contributed $100,000. The Kern County Prosecutors Association and the Sacramento County Sheriffs’ Association each gave $10,000 while the Sacramento Police Officers Association contributed $5,000.

    The American Civil Liberties Union has given more than $577,000 in support of Prop 34, making it the top donor behind the measure. The Atlantic Advocacy Fund, a liberal-leaning group that donates to various efforts, and Nicholas Pritzker, whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain, each gave $500,000.

    Prop 34 supporters have raised $3.9 million while opponents have raised about $136,000, according to MapLight.

    Here’s a link to the MapLight site.



    http://blog.pe.com/political-empire/...-fight-repeal/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #39
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Marin DA skirts Proposition 34 stand despite death penalty 'reservations'


    Marin County supervisors are expected to support a Nov. 6 ballot measure abolishing the death penalty in California, but District Attorney Ed Berberian isn't likely to join them.

    Supervisor Steve Kinsey, noting Marin supervisors have historically opposed the death penalty, asked Berberian to consider joining them in opposing it when the county board considers Proposition 34 in several weeks. The initiative would replace the death penalty with life without parole and require inmates to get prison jobs to pay restitution.

    "I am one of the DA's that has certain reservations about that particular punishment," Berberian told the board at a recent planning session, quickly adding that the penalty has merit in some cases.

    "Yes, I have discretion, but I don't think I have a blank check to say 'No, I will never do that,'" he said of seeking the death penalty. "There are very, very few" cases in Marin where the death penalty has been sought, he said. "We have not had that many," he said. "I need justification for doing that," he said of seeking a death sentence.

    Asked by a reporter how he intended to vote on Proposition 34, Berberian skirted an answer, saying the matter was between him and the ballot box. "I as an individual will cast my ballot," the DA noted as the session concluded.

    Sheriff Bob Doyle, questioned later about his view, pulled no punches on Proposition 34, saying he is voting against the measure. "I believe that the death penalty has its place in our society," the sheriff said. "It's the ultimate punishment for very heinous crimes."

    California, with more than 700 inmates on death row, has not put a prisoner to death since 2006, when a federal judge halted executions until changes in how the penalty was administered were made. Thirteen inmates have been executed in California since the penalty was reinstated in the state by Proposition 7 in 1978.

    Death penalty foes point to a study this summer indicating death row cases cost taxpayers far more than life without parole in light of appeal and related expenses, with the state spending roughly $308 million each on the 13 cases that ended in execution since 1978.


    http://www.marinij.com/sanrafael/ci_...-despite-death
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #40
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    Californians debate death penalty as vote to end it nears


    Sharron Mankins, McGregor Scott and Bill Babbitt each have watched a man die inside the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison, and each has a strong view on whether voters should end California's death penalty in November.

    Even after 20 years, Mankins has no regrets about watching Robert Alton Harris die by cyanide gas for the 1978 murders of her 16-year-old son, Michael Baker, and his friend John Mayeski.

    "We saw justice served," the 69-year-old Southern California woman said in an interview last month. "It took a long time, but it helped us all.

    "I think it helped the whole family."

    Scott, who witnessed the lethal-injection execution of Darrell Rich in March 2000 as the Shasta County district attorney, remembers the event with almost clinical precision.

    "I do not want to minimize or downplay the fact that the man's life was taken that night," Scott said of the so-called "Hilltop Rapist," who killed four young women in a 1978 crime spree.

    "But what I observed that evening could not in any way be described as cruel or unusual punishment. It was a very calm process in which he appeared to go to sleep. And that was it."

    To Mankins and Scott, the death penalty is an important tool for prosecutors and victims, one that they both believe should be retained.

    For Babbitt, it is a costly waste and a reminder of the night in 1999 that he watched his brother, Manuel Babbitt, die by injection for the murder of 78-year-old Leah Schendel of Sacramento.

    "Why don't we take the money and fix people like Manny Babbitt …, take that money and try to solve crimes?" asked Babbitt, who turned his brother in to police after Schendel's slaying.

    These are the opposing viewpoints that will play out in the coming weeks over Proposition 34, which asks voters to end the death penalty in California and allow death row inmates to be resentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole.

    Supporters of the measure, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to attorneys and a former San Quentin warden, are waging a campaign based on the notion that the entire process is far too costly, and that scrapping the death penalty could save cash-strapped California hundreds of millions of dollars.

    They note that legal hurdles have severely limited the state's ability to carry out executions, and that since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978 only 13 men have been executed in California – the last in 2006.

    Another 729 inmates are on death row awaiting executions that may be years or decades away.

    "The cost of the system today is so enormous," said Don Heller, the Sacramento attorney who wrote the 1978 initiative to restore the death penalty and who now wants to do away with capital punishment.

    "It's cost $4 billion to execute 13 people since 1978, approximately $330 million per execution. It makes no sense, particularly in these current economic times when we're cutting back on public safety and education."

    The measure includes a provision that would take $100 million out of the state's general fund over four years and direct it to local law enforcement, money that supporters say would be more than offset by savings from ending death penalty trials, appeals and other costs.

    Supporters of the death penalty say those arguments are hypocritical and just plain wrong.

    "Basically, it doesn't cost as much as they claim and it doesn't need to cost as much as it does," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento. "The system is entirely fixable and we've known for years how to fix it."

    Scheidegger and others say the delays and huge costs that proponents of Proposition 34 cite have been created by the ACLU and other death penalty opponents.

    Legal challenges to California's method of execution, currently a three-drug process, have stalled any executions since 2006 and there is no end in sight, partly because of a shortage of one of the three drugs.

    Scheidegger notes that there are currently 13 inmates on death row whose appeals have been exhausted and who could be put to death in short order if the state switched to a one-drug process, as some other states have.

    "They could do single drug (executions) tomorrow," Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully said. "They have practiced it."

    Ohio began using a one-drug process in 2009 and conducted its first execution 25 days later, according to research by Scully's office. Since then, 15 inmates have been executed in the state.

    Arizona went to a one-drug protocol, as the process is called, earlier this year and executed someone two days later. California officials have indicated in court filings that if the state moved to use a single drug it "would prefer that the execution team have three days' notice."

    Scully and others say California officials could easily exempt the death penalty from lengthy regulatory procedures and implement the one-drug protocol, and that the California District Attorneys Association has asked Gov. Jerry Brown to do so.

    But Scully said she believes Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris, both of whom oppose the death penalty but say they would enforce the law, have no interest in speeding up the process.

    Scully added that she does not want to be seen as cavalierly pushing for people to be put to death, noting that the entire topic is a "solemn" one that needs to be addressed seriously. But she said the argument that money could be saved by housing condemned inmates for the rest of their lives makes no sense.

    "For every person that gets their sentence of execution carried out, we have now just saved on housing and health care costs," she said. "How does that save money, by keeping them in there as opposed to executing them?"

    For now, supporters of keeping the death penalty note that they are being outspent by large margins.

    Backers of Proposition 34 have raised roughly $2 million so far this year from a variety of Silicon Valley and Hollywood executives, ACLU chapters and others.

    Opponents of the measure have reported raising barely $50,000, although they say they expect more contributions from law enforcement groups and elected officials and that they hope voters' long-standing support for the death penalty will continue.

    "I fully expect that they are going to massively outspend our side," Scheidegger said. "But there are limits to how much you can change people's minds with advertising."

    Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/04...#storylink=cpy
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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