Recycling Is A Beautiful Thing In California

This post is sponsored by Arrowhead Waters. All opinions are my own.

2.8 BILLION plastic bottles ended up in California landfills in 2011.  I want to share this post to do my part and spread the word: recycle MORE!  Recycling saves resources and reduces environmental impact.

Our family recycles. We just do.  It something that we have done since we were kids.  It is something that our child is growing up doing.

I would love to hear about your recycling efforts and to see some of your craftiness with recycled art! I'm hoping that you will share! I'd love some ideas on crafting projects that I can do with our preschool aged son!

I would much rather see plastic bottles transformed into these pretty pieces vs. a landfill full of plastic bottles! I am not crafty (yet - I am a work in progress) but I am inspired by the creativity of these Etsy artists!

Photo source: Arrowhead  ReBorn Bottle on Facebook 

Recycling is one of the easiest and most beneficial ways we can all help the environment. Sadly, only about 30% of PET plastic bottles get recycled. For recycling to work, we all have to do our part.

Photo source: Arrowhead  ReBorn Bottle on Facebook 

To learn a more about Arrowhead's recycling initiatives please visit the Arrowhead Facebook page. I hope that you will help to spread the word and commit to recycling more!  I invite you to take a moment to watch this behind the scenes video.

 

Many of you are not in California, how does your state fare in regards to recycling?



Bulldozers push around piles of trash at San Diego's Miramar Landfill.
Photo Credit: Katie Orr | kpbs.org



California's Cruel And Unusual Death Penalty 40 Years And $4 Billion After Furman v. Georgia

San Quentin State Prison

40 years ago today, the United States Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, which struck down existing death penalty laws as unconstitutional in violation of the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual clause.  California's death penalty was quickly reinstated.

Attempting to comply with Furman, the new statute made the death penalty mandatory for certain first degree murders and other crimes.  But in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down death penalty laws that provided for mandatory death sentences. The California Supreme Court, relying on the high court's ruling, once again found the state's statute to be unconstitutional.

Undeterred, the California legislature passed a new death penalty law in 1977.  This was followed in 1978 by a ballot proposition, known as the Briggs Amendment, which was similar but more expansive version that sought to encompass more -- virtually all -- categories of murder (including unintentional murders committed during certain felonies).  Briggs passed and it is the law we are living with, so to speak, today.   

Forty years after Furman: $4 billion dollars, over a thousand death sentences, over 720 currently on death row, and 13 executions, none since January 2006.

Tani Cantil-Sakauye, after one year as the Chief Justice of the State of California, has concluded that the state's capital punishment system is "not effective" and requires "structural changes" that the State cannot afford.  Her predecessor, Ron George, who was Chief Justice for 15 years, came to the same conclusion, describing California's death penalty scheme as "dysfunctional."

An extensive study by Arthur Alarcon, long-time judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, who, together with law professor Paula Mitchell, determined that California's death penalty system is currently costing the state about $184 million per year.  They concluded that "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions."

Justice Byron White observed in Furman that:

When imposition of the penalty reaches a certain degree of infrequency, it would be very doubtful that any existing general need for retribution would be measurably satisfied.  Nor could it be said with confidence that society’s need for specific deterrence justifies death for so few when for so many in like circumstances life imprisonment or shorter prison terms are judged sufficient, or that community values are measurably reinforced by authorizing a penalty so rarely invoked.” 

The infrequency of executions and the randomness with regard to which condemned inmates actually will be executed have made a mockery of the supposedly rational justifications for the death penalty.  In addition, given the current backlog and the serious problems identified by the California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ) -- problems that would require an enormous influx of state funds to fix -- it simply is not possible that defendants who are only now being sentenced to death will have their death sentences carried out.  Because it is “so wantonly and so freakishly” used, California’s death penalty has become a wholly arbitrary punishment in the same sense as the death penalty laws that were struck down in Furman.

Justice Potter Stewart famously characterized the Texas and Georgia statutes at issue in Furman as being “cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual.”  What he meant was that of all those who committed death eligible crimes, the petitioners were “among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death has in fact been imposed . . . [and] the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed.”

Application of Furman’s benchmark for determining arbitrariness demonstrates that only a “capriciously selected random handful” of death-sentenced inmates in California will actually be executed.  A new death row prisoner would have to get in line behind 720 condemned inmates.  He or she would then have to wait years for appointment of appellate counsel (currently a 5 year wait) and even longer for the appointment of state habeas counsel (8-10 years).  Even after these lawyers are appointed and appellate briefs and habeas petitions are filed, the case will not be heard and decided before the several hundreds of cases that have preceded it.  And then, after all this time and expense, the California Supreme Court, in virtually every case regardless of the merits, will uphold the death sentence.   Then the case moves on to federal court, which has its own backlog, and often requires new counsel, with proceedings currently averaging over six years in district court followed by over four years of appellate review. 

Justice White noted in Furman that where the “penalty is so infrequently imposed that the threat of execution is too attenuated to be of substantial service to criminal justice” it is unconstitutional.  As he stated, when the death penalty “ceases realistically to further [the social ends it was deemed to serve] . . .  its imposition would then be the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes.  A penalty with such negligible returns to the State would be patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment.”

We have far surpassed this point in California.

The SAFE California Act is on the November ballot.  If it passes it would replace California's multi‑billion dollar death penalty with life imprisonment without parole and require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution to victim families through the victim compensation fund.  It would also set aside $100 million in budget saving for local law enforcement for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases.

Please join the effort to replace the death penalty by clicking here:  SAFE California.

Since When Don't We Put A Price Tag On Justice?

By Ty Alper, cross-posted from Huffington Post

Faced with unassailable evidence that the death penalty in California costs hundreds of millions of dollars per year, death penalty supporters tend to respond with what is intended to be a conversation stopper: "You can't put a price tag on justice."

But wait a minute. Don't we already? Only in a world with unlimited resources could we run government programs with no regard for their price tags. Unfortunately, that is not where we live today. Consider Governor Jerry Brown's latest budget proposal as reported by the New York Times:

Struggling to contain mounting state budget shortfalls, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday proposed $8.3 billion in spending cuts, including slashing state employees pay and spending on social programs and prisons. He warned that California would have to impose another $6 billion in cuts on public schools and higher education if voters fail to approve his initiative this fall to raise sales and income taxes.

My kids go to public school in California and I teach at a public law school. I would love to be able to say, "You can't put a price tag on an education." But that would be ridiculous. It happens all the time.

The implication in the death penalty context, of course, is that only the most heartless among us would relish telling the mother of a murder victim that the person who killed her child is not going to be executed because, well, it just costs too much.

But here's what we need to remember: about half of all rapes and murders in California go unsolved. A 2009 survey asked law enforcement officials what interfered with effective law enforcement. The number one answer was lack of resources. (Last on the list was "insufficient use of the death penalty.") Thousands of rape kits across the state sit unexamined, because there is no money to conduct DNA testing.

The victims of unsolved murders and rapes are no less deserving of justice than the victims of solved crimes. The SAFE California initiative that will be on the ballot in November would eliminate the death penalty, save $1 billion that we desperately need over the next five years, and create a "$100 million fund to be distributed to law enforcement agencies to help solve more homicide and rape cases."

The next time you hear someone say that you can't put a price tag on justice, ask them if they would say the same thing to the family members of victims of the 1,000 murders that go unsolved in California each year.

I'd love to live in a California with no price tags. Until then, the price tag on the death penalty is busting our state's budget.

Ty Alper is an assistant clinical professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

It's Official! The Initiative To Replace California's Death Penalty Qualifies For The November Ballot

The SAFE California Act, the initiative to replace California's multi-billion dollar death penalty with life in prison with no possibility of parole, has qualified for the November ballot.  This is epic.

With a death row population over 720, it is undisputed that California's death penalty system is broken beyond repair.  Despite over 30 years of sentencing more and more people to death, only about 1% of them have actually been executed –  a total of 13 executions since 1978, and none since 2006. It is a costly (an exhaustive study concluded that "California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion), time-consuming, unreliable and unworkable system that serves no useful purpose. Meanwhile, it drains judicial resources and diverts much-needed funds from truly effective public safety programs.

When it passes, SAFE California will require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution to victim families through the victim compensation fund. And it sets aside $100 million in budget savings for local law enforcement for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases. Because while we spend time and resources on those already tried and convicted, in an average year, 46% of murders cases in California remain unsolved and 56% of reported rapes.

Recent polls show California voters are ready to replace the death penalty, and join a nationwide trend.  (Connecticut is on the verge of becoming the fifth state in five years to replace the death penalty, following Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York.)  Both the Public Policy Institute of California and Field Poll have found that when given the option, more California voters opted for life in prison without the possibility of parole over the death penalty.

As Jeanne Woodford the former Warden at San Quentin State Prison, and current Executive Director at Death Penalty Focus, put it, this is a "game-changer of massive proportions."

SAFE California is a historic campaign that will change California forever – for the better. Once we replace the death penalty in November, we will save millions in public safety dollars and California will never again risk executing an innocent person. We’ll soon have the opportunity to use  hundreds of millions of dollars in budget savings to improve personal safety for families across our state.

Death Penalty Proponents Lose Another Argument

Those of us representing defendants who have killed understand the utter fallacy of the argument that the death penalty deters killing.  It is nonsensical to think that when one is suffering from whatever disturbed state of mind that leads him or her to intentionally cause another's death they carefully weigh beforehand whether to do so based on what ultimate punishment they may receive (i.e., "Yes, I will kill because the worst that could happen is I get life without parole.")

Indeed, while it has long been argued by death penalty proponents that capital punishment is necessary to deter crime, it has never been conclusively proven to have a deterrent effect.  In fact, it has long been true that the states with capital punishment also have the most crimes of violence.

Albert Camus’ essay against the death penalty, Reflections on the Guillotine (1957), includes a refutation of the deterrence argument that remains salient today.  Camus, citing an earlier study which described pickpockets plying their trade at the public hanging of other pickpockets, goes on to explain that  the complexity of human nature is not so easily controlled by law: “When law ventures, in the hope of dominating, into the dark regions of consciousness, it has little chance of being able to simplify the complexity it wants to codify.”

And now we have more proof - - or lack of proof.  As reported in the Los Angeles Times, a panel of independent experts convened by the National Research Council released a report finding that the studies on the alleged deterrent effect of the death penalty contain fundamental flaws that render them meaningless.  For example, the studies fail to consider whether other forms of punishment, such as life without parole, may also act as a deterrent. The studies don’t “consider how the capital and noncapital components of a regime combine in affecting the behavior of potential murderers.”

More fundamentally, the research underlying deterrence studies is based on the assumption that those who kill can or even try to accurately calculate their risk of being executed if they were convicted.  But, as the chairman of the committee acknowledged, "nothing is known about how potential murderers actually perceive their risk of punishment.”

It  has become increasingly clear that capital punishment is not a productive tool for fighting crime and, indeed, undermines personal and public safety by draining needed resources from more effective methods.

Many people who have devoted their lives and careers to law enforcement, public safety and victims' rights, including former San Quentin Warden Jeanne Woodford, former Los Angeles D.A. Gil Garcetti, Supervisor Ron Briggs whose family created California's death penalty law, and Don Heller, who wrote it, have come to realize that the death penalty is counterproductive, that the old arguments in favor of its continued use no longer apply, and that the time has come to replace it.

The SAFE California Act is about to qualify for the November 2012 ballot.  If it passes it would replace California's multi‑billion dollar death penalty with life imprisonment without parole and require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution to victim families through the victim compensation fund.  It would also set aside $100 million in budget saving for local law enforcement for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases.

Click here for more information on the SAFE California campaign and on how you can join the effort to replace the death penalty and enhance our personal and public safety.

Evolving Standards Of Decency: Who's Next?

I have previously written about the phrase, "evolving standards of decency," which is used in Eighth Amendment jurisprudence to analyze whether a given practice is cruel and unusual.  While the Supreme Court has so far refused to find that capital punishment offends "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," there has been a strong trend away from capital punishment on the state level, as the death penalty is increasingly seen as too fallible and too costly to remain on the books.

Connecticut is on the verge of becoming the fifth state in five years to replace the death penalty (following Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York).  Yesterday, a bill passed Connecticut's State Senate.  It is expected to pass the House, and Governor Daniel P. Malloy has already agreed to sign it.

(The legislation would not affect the sentences of the 11 inmates now on Connecticut’s death row, although it should be noted that the state has executed only one inmate in the last fifty-one years; Michael Ross was executed in 2005, after he gave up his right to appeal.)

Who's next?  As the New York Times reports, "repeal proposals are also pending in several other states, including Kansas and Kentucky, while advocates in California have gathered enough signatures to put an initiative to throw out the death penalty before voters in November."

The SAFE California Act would replace California's multi‑billion dollar death penalty with life imprisonment without parole and require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution to victim families through the victim compensation fund.  It would also set aside $100 million in budget saving for local law enforcement for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases.

Former San Quentin warden Jeanne Woodford points out that:  “Connecticut’s estimated $5 million in annual death penalty costs pale in comparison to California’s $184 million per year. Spending on the death penalty for the entire state of Connecticut comes to about 3% of what we spend in California in one year.”  As Woodford says, Californa's death penalty is a failed system "that is extremely costly, harms public safety and always carries the risk of executing an innocent person. We have over 700 death row prisoners in California. It is the largest and costliest system in the country ‑‑ and the world."

We, as a nation, are clearing evolving when it comes to the death penalty.  There continue to be fewer death sentences imposed and fewer executions carried out each year.  There are also fewer states retaining capital punishment.  

Who's next?  You can help make it be California by joining the campaign.  For more information click here.

The Dismantling Of California's Schools

By Rose Aguilar, cross-posted from Al Jazeera

I recently invited University of California-Davis sophomore Sarena Grossjan-Navarro to join my radio show - focusing on the Occupy Education actions taking place across the country, and the recent plan to descend on Sacramento to Occupy the Capitol, but she wasn't available. She's taking a heavy load this term, hoping to incur as little debt as possible. She was almost forced to drop out last term because the financial aid she receives is not enough to cover the basics. She's currently sleeping on friends' couches because she can't afford housing.

Grossjan-Navarro was one of the UC-Davis students who got pepper-sprayed by a police officer wearing riot gear during a peaceful protest on November 18, 2011. The students were speaking out against tuition hikes and the brutal treatment of Occupy demonstrators at UC-Berkeley, who were beaten and billy-clubbed a week earlier.

You've might have seen the video, which went viral and received international outrage. Nineteen UC-Davis students and alumni recently sued the University for constitutional violations over the incident, which was not only traumatising, but caused them burning sensations for days.

To say that students and faculty are angry and fed up is putting it lightly. Over the past year, we've seen students across the United States protest, hold walk-outs and teach-ins, and even shut down freeways and bridges. The Occupy movement has energised and yes, even radicalised, a new generation of students who haven't been politically active until now.

They're barely making ends meet. They're going to the school food pantry because they can't afford enough food. They're either racking up debt or are on the verge of dropping out because of ongoing tuition hikes. They deserve better.


Tuition hikes

Tuition and fees at the University of California's 10 campuses are up a whopping 21 per cent this year, according to the College Board. According to this UC-Davis fact sheet, the total cost of attendance for an on-campus undergraduate is $31,199 a year. Commuters living with parents should expect to pay $24,542. Those figures include books, which can cost more than $100 each, supplies, room and board, personal expenses and transportation.

Students attending one of California State University's 23 campuses will see their tuition increase by $498, or another nine per cent, for the 2012-2013 academic year, bringing the annual bill to $7,017. It's the ninth tuition increase in nine years. Tuition at community colleges is going up another $10 to $46 a unit in May. Full-time students typically take 15 units a semester.

Over the past four years, California state lawmakers have cut more than $1.5bn from the state's colleges and universities. Students are struggling to take the classes they need, class sizes are growing, faculty are seeing their salaries and benefits cuts, and services are being slashed.

As states across the country tighten their budgets, California's higher education cuts have been the most severe. For decades, California has been lauded for making its public institutions accessible and affordable for all of its citizens, but because of severe cuts, students are now being turned away. The students who are admitted are not being served. And once they graduate with piles of debt, their job prospects are dim.

And it's not just colleges. Ask any K-12 teacher what they're facing. I was shocked to learn recently that a dear friend, who is a dedicated and passionate 4th-grade teacher in the South Bay, is on the verge of quitting because her situation has become untenable. Her class size is growing every year, many of her students have special needs and she has no support.

She's burned out and is tired of being forced to focus on reading and math, while subjects like art and science are disregarded. Like so many teachers, she brings food to class for hungry students, buys supplies with her own money and acts as a counsellor for the growing number of students whose parents have lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet.

Olive Mitra, a high school literature teacher at the June Jordan School for Equity in San Francisco, has to spend his own money on school supplies and books. Try doing that on a teacher's salary in an expensive city like San Francisco.

Mitra's friends recently raised enough money for him to buy Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude for his 11th and 12th grade students, but he still can't afford dictionaries. There are no dictionaries in Mitra's literature classes because he can't afford them. When students don't know the meaning of a word, they look it up on their phones or on the one working computer in class.

"I feel frustrated that banks are getting bailed out and I have to write grants, in addition to grading papers and preparing curriculum, in order to provide dictionaries to my youth," he says.

Let's not forget about the multi-billion dollar occupations. The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the state of California over $52bn since 2001, according to the National Priorities Project (click here to find out how much the occupations are costing your state).

Prisons over schools

And yet politicians say we're broke. We all need to make sacrifices. The students, teachers and professors I've interviewed over the past year know better. In 2011, California spent $9.6bn on prisons and $5.7bn on higher education.

According to Critical Resistance, an organisation seeking to end the prison-industrial complex, spending on prisons has grown 1,500 per cent since 1980, while spending on higher education has plummeted.

Over the past 30 years, California has built one university and 20 prisons. The state spends about $50,000 per inmate each year. According to the latest Quality Counts report from Education Week, the state spends $8,667 per student per year. California, once known for its stellar education system, now ranks 47 in overall per-pupil spending.

What message does this send? We have plenty for the military, banks, and prisons, but when it comes to education, you're on your own. It's all about priorities.

Students, faculty and their supporters are occupying the state capitol in Sacramento today to make their voices heard, demand an end to further cuts, and raise awareness about solutions like The Millionaires Tax of 2012, a ballot initiative that would require Californians who earn $1m or more to pay an extra three per cent in state income tax; those who earn $2m or more would pay an extra five per cent.

According to the California Federation of Teachers, these taxes would raise an estimated $6bn per year for all schools, senior, child and disabled services, local fire services, and roads and bridges.
The ReFund California coalition notes that when President Obama signed a bill to extend the Bush tax cuts in December 2010, California's wealthiest received a windfall of $9-14bn per year, nearly equal to the entire state budget deficit.

A group called the Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength is calling for an end to the Bush tax cuts, but no one in DC seems to be listening.

And then there's the oil severance tax. California is the only major oil-producing state in the country that doesn't tax oil companies. A 15 per cent tax on crude oil and natural gas could bring in an estimated $3bn a year, according to the group Rescue Education California.

California-based Chevron recently disappointed investors by posting $5.1bn in fourth-quarter net income, a 3.5 per cent drop from a year earlier. Despite what reports call "weaker" profits, the company's 2011 earnings jumped 41 per cent to $26.9bn.

Occupy Education states:

We refuse to pay for the crisis created by the 1 per cent. We refuse to accept the dismantling of our schools and universities, while the banks and corporations make record profits. We refuse to accept educational re-segregation, massive tuition increases, outrageous student debt, and increasing privatisation and corporatisation. They got bailed out and we got sold out. But through nationally coordinated mass action we can and will turn back the tide of austerity. If we make the rich and the corporations pay we can reverse the budget cuts, tuition hikes, and attacks on job security, and fully fund public education and social services.

We must do the right thing for the students, teachers, faculty and parents who are bravely marching, speaking out, and working to change this horribly broken and unfair system.

Rose Aguilar is the host of Your Call, a daily call-in radio show on KALW in San Francisco. She's the author of Red Highways: A Liberal's Journey into the Heartland.

"I Am Here For Our History"

By Tony Platt, cross-posted from his blog, GoodToGo

A sharp chill cuts through the balmy air on Tuesday morning (February 28) as a sizable crowd assembles at an iconic landmark for a ceremony marking the issue of an express mail stamp honoring the Carmel Mission on the northern California coast.

Recognized for its dome-shaped bell tower and star-shaped window, and as the burial place of Father Junipero Serra, founder of the California mission system, the Carmel Mission draws some 150,000 tourists annually. In vivid colors reminiscent of a vintage poster, the new stamp depicts the façade of the church and a courtyard ringed by verdant flowers. It commemorates a place, not the thousands of native people who lived and died there.

Before the ceremony, I am invited to join Louise J. Miranda Ramirez, tribal chairwoman of the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation, as she conducts a blessing over the “graves of the ancestors” in the cemetery behind the basilica. This small plot of land includes headstones for the Spanish priests buried here and a series of gravesites, ringed by abalone shells, “in memory of the Christian Indians” stacked in pits between 1771 and 1833. The Indians are anonymous, the priests named. A few yards away, Father Serra is interred in a large crypt.

 “These graves for the Indians are just decorative and symbolic,” says Ramirez, as she burns a sage stick and sprinkles tobacco over the ground. “Thousands of Indians are buried in the mission’s grounds. Everywhere we walk there are bodies beneath us.” As we follow her around the small cemetery, she studies the ground carefully, stooping every few minutes to pick up items at her feet. “Look,” she says, “these are human bones dug up by gophers. I’ve asked them to bring in soil and cover the graves with some protection, but they don’t do anything.” It’s hard for me to look at the pieces of bone. Ramirez is almost matter-of-fact. “I do this every time I come here, every time.”

We return to the courtyard for the stamp’s dedication. Louise Miranda Ramirez takes her place on the stage next to the other speakers. Each is given five minutes for their talk. The scripted ceremony goes according to plan until it’s her turn to speak.

Bishop Richard Garcia blesses the new stamp and observes that the mission’s land is also “sacred to native peoples,” but unlike Bishop Francis Quinn during a mass in San Raphael in 2007, he does not apologize for “imposing a European Catholicism upon the natives.”

A representative for the U.S. Postal Service talks about “similarities between the missions of early California and our colonial Post Offices, especially how they both served to connect and bind people together.” He’s impressed by the “efficiency” of the missions, how they delivered information on time. But he doesn’t discuss how the missions destroyed the very effective communication systems of native peoples and attempted to erase languages thousands of years old.

An aide to Congressman Sam Farr describes her boss’ love of stamp collecting. She recalls her children’s 4th grade mission project and encourages everybody to “buy this historical stamp.” Not a word about the slave labor that built the mission or the lives and cultures stamped out by the mission system.

The U. S. Postal Service consulted a California State professor, Ruben Mendoza, to make sure that the commemorative stamp is faithful to Carmel Mission’s provenance. He speaks today about the influence of European architecture and how Monterey was the “epicenter of the Christianization of California.” But the Postal Service did not consult Heyday publisher Malcolm Margolin, who also would have pointed out that, while the mission’s architecture has been faithfully restored, “the human details are invariably omitted: the sight of men and women in irons, the sound of the whip, the misery of the Indians.”

The president of the Carmel Mission Foundation gives a fund-raising pitch, asking for help in raising five million dollars to make the basilica earthquake-safe. But he doesn’t mention the pittance it would cost to decently re-bury the exposed human remains and cover the ground of the cemetery with a layer of protective soil.

Then, it’s Louise Miranda Ramirez’s turn to talk about “200+ Years in Five Minutes.” She’s here to represent the more than  six hundred tribal members of Esselen and Carmeleno descent, to speak for “the thousands of Ancestors buried under our feet in a mass grave.” The kids in the audience stop fidgeting and pay attention. “I am here for our Ancestors that are disturbed by the laying of new sewer pipes on their graves. I am the voice for the Ancestors disturbed by the rodents digging up their remains.” Some adults in the audience shift uneasily in their seats. “I am here for the few thousand Ancestors who did survive so that we could be here today. I am here for our children, our history.”

Louise Miranda Ramirez ends her talk with a chant: “We are here, we exist/We are here, we exist/ We will always exist here.” She also says a few subversive words in her native Esselen. Only a few people in the audience understand that she is asking “the Creator and Priest to return our homeland to our people.”

At the end of the speeches, a large replica of the new stamp is unveiled on the stage. The Master of Ceremonies asks all the speakers to gather around the stamp for a publicity photo. Louise Miranda Ramirez steps out of the picture in silent protest.

Tony Platt has taught American history, public policy, and social sciences for 40 years at University of Chicago (1966-1968), Berkeley (1968-1977), and California State University, Sacramento (1977-2007).  He has written several books, including "The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency" (1969) and "Bloodlines:  Recovering Hitler's Nuremberg Laws, From Patton's Trophy to Public Memorial" (2006). His recent work focused on issues relating to public history, memory, and the tragic past.

Capital Punishment Is A Dying Institution

The traditional arguments against the death penalty are familiar:  It is morally wrong; it is uncivilized and inhumane as reflected by its disuse by every other western nation; it is all too fallible resulting in the execution of the innocent; it is a legacy of the more shameful aspects of our nation's past (e.g., slavery and lynching); and it is applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner.

But what about the reasons for maintaining it?  As David Garland explains in his remarkable book, Peculiar Institution, capital punishment was initially seen as an essential instrument of state power by emerging, fragile governments and used ritualistically and brutally against perceived enemies of the state.  Once nations achieved more legitimacy and stability, executions were used primarily as a means of crime control due in large part to the absence of an established prison system or extensive police force.  With the development in the 19th Century and early 20th Century of a criminal justice apparatus, including police, courts and penitentiaries, the death penalty was no longer penalogically necessary either.

By the 1970s, it was clear, as Garland points out, that the death penalty was not an effective crime-fighting tool and its deterrent effect was uncertain at best.  (It has long been true that the states with capital punishment also have the most crimes of violence.)   Nevertheless, in 1976, when the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty, it cited deterrence as well as retribution as the penalty's two worthy social goals.  Whether these were ever legitimate bases for imposing the death penalty, however, they surely have become meaningless in today's system in which crime and ultimate punishment are so far removed from each other.

In California, there are over 720 men and women on death row.  No executions have taken place since 2006, and there have been a total of 13 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.  It takes over five years for a condemned inmate to get a lawyer to handle his appeal, and cases take up to thirty years to be resolved.  As the California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice concluded after its extensive review in 2008 of the state's death penalty system, death sentences are unlikely ever to be carried out (with extremely rare exceptions) because of a process “plagued with excessive delay” in the appointment of post-conviction counsel and a “severe backlog” in the California Supreme Court's review of death judgments.  According to CCFAJ's report, the lapse of time from sentence of death to execution constitutes the longest delay of any death penalty state.

With such long delays plaguing a dysfunctional system, any retributive or deterrent effect certainly loses its force.  In a case the U.S. Supreme Court did not take up, involving the constitutionality of executing someone who had been on death row for 17 years, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a memorandum in which he noted that "after such an extended time, the acceptable state interest in retribution has arguably been satisfied by the severe punishment already inflicted," and that "the additional deterrent effect from an actual execution now, on the one hand, as compared to 17 years on death row followed by the prisoner's continued incarceration for life, on the other, seems minimal." 



But despite the passage of time, aren't there some crimes that are so grievous that only the death penalty is an adequate response?  Unfortunately, the system is not able to meaningfully distinguish who among capital defendants are most deserving of the death penalty.  California's statute was specifically designed to encompass virtually every kind of murder -- including felony-murder (i.e. when someone dies during the course of a robbery, burglary or certain other specified felonies; intent to kill is not required).  As a result, we have the largest death row in the country, which includes hundreds of condemned inmates who may be responsible for causing the deaths of others and who should be punished but who cannot be categorized as "the worst-of-the-worst."

Furthermore, the death penalty is so arbitrarily applied that the location of the murder, race, gender and ethnicity, the proclivities of the individual prosecutor and/or the skill of defense counsel are far more likely indicators of who will get death than the circumstances of the crime.  (As legendary capital defender Steve Bright has said, the death penalty is often reserved for the case with the worst lawyer not the worst crime.)

What about closure for the victims' families?  It is hard to imagine that families would not be better served if the killer of their loved ones was given a life sentence rather than being dragged through decades of appeals and hearings while they wait for an execution that is unlikely to take place.  Members of California Crime Victims for Alternative to the Death Penalty, a coalition of families, friends, and loved ones of murder victims, supports alternatives to the death penalty and understand that, as one of its members, Judy Kerr wrote, "the death penalty is a failed policy which strips away funding from solving cold cases, victims services and crime prevention."

Which brings us back to crime fighting and public safety.  Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin State Prison, who presided over four executions, and is now executive director of Death Penalty Focus, says that after each execution someone on the staff would ask, "Is the world safer because of what we did tonight?"  As she writes, "We knew the answer: No."

An extensive study by Arthur Alarcon, long-time judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, who, together with law professor Paula Mitchell, determined that California's death penalty system is currently costing the state about $184 million per year.  Further, "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions."  Meanwhile, 46% of murders and 56% of rapes go unsolved in California every year.

Prosecutors argue that having the death penalty is a critical plea bargaining chip that they use to secure life without parole sentences. Putting aside the morality of using the threat of death to extort a lesser sentence, this argument has nothing more than facial appeal.  The data does not support the oft-repeated proposition that the threat of a death sentence has resulted in more pleas to life without parole.  There have been cases, however, where the fear of a death sentence has led otherwise innocent defendants to give up their rights to trial and plead guilty to obtain a lesser punishment. 

Thus, not only are the historical justifications for the death penalty obsolete, but it has become increasingly clear that none of the contemporary pro-death arguments stand up to scrutiny either.  Capital punishment is not a productive tool for fighting crime and, indeed, undermines public safety by draining needed resources for more effective methods.  Even the more visceral needs such as revenge and retribution, as well as the desire for closure, are not satisfied by a broken system in which those sentenced to death will most likely never be executed.

Over the last several decades the death penalty has served no useful purpose except to provide politicians with a potent symbol to prove their "tough on crime" bona fides (although as the last election demonstrated, even that old trope no longer works).  Replacing it with life without parole would far better address many of the issues commonly raised by death penalty proponents, including fiscal concerns, safety, and victims' rights.  

The SAFE California Act will soon qualify to be on the November 2012 ballot.  If it passes it would replace California's multi‑billion dollar death penalty with life imprisonment without parole and require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution to victim families through the victim compensation fund.  It would also set aside $100 million in budget saving for local law enforcement for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases.

Many people who have devoted their lives and careers to law enforcement, public safety and victims' rights support this measure, including former warden Jeanne Woodford, former Los Angeles D.A. Gil Garcetti, Supervisor Ron Briggs whose family created the current death penalty law, and Don Heller, who wrote it.  They have come to realize that the death penalty is counterproductive, that the old arguments in favor of its continued use no longer apply, and that the time has come to replace it.

Click here for more information on the SAFE California campaign and on how you can join the effort to replace the death penalty and enhance our personal and public safety.

$4 Billion And 40 Years After People v. Anderson Struck Down California's Death Penalty

Chief Justice Wright swears in Gov. Brow

"We cannot assume that capital punishment is not so cruel as to offend contemporary standards of decency . . .  It degrades and dehumanizes all who participate in its processes. It is unnecessary to any legitimate goal of the state and is incompatible with the dignity of man and the judicial process."  -- People v. Anderson

Forty years ago, as my indefatigable colleague, Bob Bacon, has reminded me, the California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty.  On February 18, 1972, in People v. Anderson, the Court (by a 6‑1 vote) concluded that the death penalty was both cruel and unusual and violated the state constitution's  "cruel OR unusual" clause.   (Contrary to myth, Anderson was decided five years before Jerry Brown appointed Rose Bird to the Court.  The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Donald Wright, who had been appointed by Governor Ronald Reagan.)

There were over 100 people on California's death row at the time of the Anderson decision, all of whom had their sentences commuted to life.  (There was no "life without parole" back then.)  A few months later the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Furman v. Georgia, which found all death penalty statutes then extant in the United States to be invalid under the federal constitution.  (A California case, Aikens v. California, was originally going to be decided along with Furman, but became moot when the California Supreme Court decided Anderson on state constitutional grounds.)

California's death penalty was quickly reinstated.  Attempting to comply with Furman, the new statute made the death penalty mandatory for certain first degree murders and other crimes.  But in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down death penalty laws that provided for mandatory death sentences. The California Supreme Court, relying on the high court's ruling, once again found the state's statute to be unconstitutional.

Undeterred, the California legislature passed a new death penalty law in 1977.  This was followed in 1978 by a ballot proposition, known as the Briggs Amendment, which was similar but more expansive version that sought to encompass more -- virtually all -- categories of murder (including unintentional murders committed during certain felonies).  Briggs passed and it is the law we are living with, so to speak, today.   
Forty years after Anderson: $4 billion dollars, over a thousand death sentences, over 720 currently on death row, and 13 executions, none since January 2006.

Tani Cantil-Sakauye, after one year as the Chief Justice of the State of California, has concluded that the state's capital punishment system is "not effective" and requires "structural changes" that the State cannot afford.  Her predecessor, Ron George, who was Chief Justice for 15 years, came to the same conclusion, describing California's death penalty scheme as "dysfunctional."

An extensive study by Arthur Alarcon, long-time judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, who, together with law professor Paula Mitchell, determined that California's death penalty system is currently costing the state about $184 million per year.  They concluded that "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions."

Don Heller, who drafted the Briggs Amendment, wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News:  “I never contemplated the staggering cost of implementing the death penalty: more than $4 billion to date and approximately $185 million projected per year in ongoing costs.”  Heller now believes that “the cost of capital punishment takes away funds that could be used to enhance public safety.”

And most recently, Ron Briggs, who together with his father Senator John Briggs, created the initiative that bears his name, wrote an op-ed in Los Angeles Times concluding that "the Briggs death penalty law in California simply does not work."

As Ron Briggs, now a county supervisor in El Dorado County, put it, "there are few 'do-overs' in life."  But 34 years after Briggs (and 40 years after Anderson first struck down California's death penalty), "the Briggs family has decided to endorse the SAFE California campaign, a fall 2012 ballot initiative that would replace the death penalty with a punishment of life without the possibility of parole."

If it passes, the SAFE California Act would replace California's multi‑billion dollar death penalty with life imprisonment without parole and require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution to victim families through the victim compensation fund.  It would also set aside $100 million in budget saving for local law enforcement for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases.

As Supervisor Briggs says, California has another chance at "real justice" and "we should embrace it."

Please join the effort to replace the death penalty by clicking here:  SAFE California.

Desperately Seeking Obsolescence: Capital Defenders Hope To Replace The Death Penalty

This Presidents' Day weekend, criminal defense attorneys, investigators and experts will gather at the Monterey Conference Center, as they have done for the past 25 years, to develop and hone their skills in death penalty cases.  The Capital Case Defense Seminar, sponsored by two stalwart organizations, the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the California Public Defenders Association, draws well over a thousand practitioners every year.

It is hoped, however, that this year will be the last, as many of the attendees join others around the State in supporting the SAFE California Act, a voter initiative which calls for replacing the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole.  The push for gathering signatures to put SAFE California on the November 2012 ballot is in its final stages and there is cautious optimism with polls showing a majority of Californians support the measure. 

In the early 1980s, when California's death penalty (reinstated in 1977-78) was just gearing up, the Seminar was a far more modest gathering of a few hundred people, and could be held at the much cozier confines of Asilomar Conference Grounds.  But with thousands of capitally-charged cases over the years and a growing death row population (now more than 700 -- twice as many as any other state), a much larger facility was required to accommodate the expanding number of lawyers, paralegals, mitigation specialists, investigators and experts needed to ensure that cases with such high stakes are provided competent representation.  Indeed, the expansion of the Conference is a reflection of the enormous costs in maintaining what has been described by judges as well as former wardens and prosecutors, as a bloated, broken, wasteful system.

If there is to be a death penalty then defense teams must be funded sufficiently so they can adequately develop and challenge evidence so that judges and juries making life and death decisions are adequately informed about the circumstances of the crime as well as the defendant's background and history.  But this doesn't come cheaply, and together with the costs associated with the prosecution -- whose resources outstrip the defense -- as well as for housing death row inmates, the tab comes close to $200 million a year, according to an exhaustive study released last summer. 

And for what?  The report, by Arthur Alarcon, long-time judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, and law professor Paula Mitchell, concluded that "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions."  As the California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice concluded after its extensive review in 2008 of the state's death penalty system, death sentences are unlikely ever to be carried out (with extremely rare exceptions) because of a process “plagued with excessive delay” in the appointment of post-conviction counsel and a “severe backlog” in the California Supreme Court's review of death judgments.  According to CCFAJ's report, the lapse of time from sentence of death to execution constitutes the longest delay of any death penalty state.

This has led Tani Cantil-Sakauye, after one year as the Chief Justice of the State of California, to conclude that the state's capital punishment system is "not effective" and requires "structural changes" that the State cannot afford.  Her predecessor, Ron George, who was Chief Justice for 15 years, came to the same conclusion, describing California's death penalty scheme as "dysfunctional."

A recent New York Times editorial explained that, "California’s system of government-hobbled-by-referendum" means that the only way to replace the death penalty is by a voter initiative.  As noted above, signatures are currently being gathered to put the SAFE California Act on the November 2012 ballot.  If it passes it would replace California's multi‑billion dollar death penalty with life imprisonment without parole and require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution to victim families through the victim compensation fund.  It would also set aside $100 million in budget saving for local law enforcement for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases.

A benefit to support the SAFE California Act campaign is being held during the Capital Case Defense Seminar on Saturday February 18, 6 - 8 pm, at the Portola Hotel & Spa.  (All are welcome.)  Speakers will include two of the most brilliant, dedicated and eloquent death penalty lawyers in the country, Steve Bright and Bryan Stephenson, as well as Jason Baldwin, one of the wrongfully convicted West Memphis Three. (Click here for more information about the event, and click here to learn more about the SAFE campaign.)

It is not as ironic as it may seem that capital defense practitioners who have devoted their lives and careers to death penalty cases are trying to make their jobs obsolete.  Being on the front lines they have experienced first hand the unfairness, arbitrariness and unreliability of California's capital punishment scheme.  They know that the imposition of death sentences does nothing to make us safer, and they understand that the resources wasted on this broken system can be far better used during this time of fiscal crisis.  And they will happily do without the intensity and unrelenting pressure of litigating cases that are literally a matter of life and death -- even if it means having to find a new line of work.

Growing Consensus That California's Death Penalty Must Be Replaced

Tani Cantil-Sakauye, after one year as the Chief Justice of the State of California, has concluded that the state's capital punishment system is "not effective" and requires "structural changes" that the state cannot afford.  Her predecessor, Ron George, who was Chief Justice for 15 years, came to the same conclusion, describing California's death penalty scheme is "dysfunctional."

These are two conservative jurists, appointed by Republican Governors, who with their fellow justices on the California Supreme Court have voted to uphold death sentences at an unprecedented rate.  But they have become disillusioned when confronted with a costly, time-consuming, unreliable and unworkable system that serves no useful purpose while draining judicial resources and diverting needed funds from true public safety programs.

As the California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice concluded after its extensive review in 2008 of the state's death penalty system, death sentences are unlikely ever to be carried out (with extremely rare exceptions) because of a process “plagued with excessive delay” in the appointment of post-conviction counsel and a “severe backlog” in the California Supreme Court's review of death judgments.  According to CCFAJ's report, the lapse of time from sentence of death to execution constitutes the longest delay of any death penalty state.

California has a death row population close to 720, by far the largest in the nation.  But it has not carried out an execution since 2006, while the myriad problems with the state's lethal injection protocol continue to be litigated.  Only ten days ago, a state court held that the revised rules for carrying out executions are invalid because state officials again misapplied California's administrative law which sets out the proper rule-making procedures.  As a recent New York Times editorial stated:  "The process it used exemplifies California’s capital-punishment system — badly broken and in need of being permanently shut down."

The Times also referenced an "exhaustive study released last summer which found that since 1978 capital punishment has cost California about $4 billion."  This is the report by Arthur Alarcon, long-time judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, who, together with law professor Paula Mitchell, determined that California's death penalty system is currently costing the state about $184 million per year.  They concluded that "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions."

The views of the present and former Chief Justice reflect, as the Los Angeles Times reports, "a growing frustration with capital punishment even among conservatives and a resignation that the system cannot be fixed as long as California's huge financial problems persist."


This includes Don Heller, the author of California's death penalty law.  He wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Daily News:   “I never contemplated the staggering cost of implementing the death penalty: more than $4 billion to date and approximately $185 million projected per year in ongoing costs.”  Heller now believes that “the cost of capital punishment takes away funds that could be used to enhance public safety.”

And Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin State Prison, who presided over four executions, now speaks out against the death penalty, has become the executive director of Death Penalty Focus, and is working hard on the SAFE California Act, a ballot initiative that would replace the death penalty with life without parole.  As Woodford asserts, the death penalty is expensive, ineffective in preventing crime, and brings with it the ever-present risk of executing an innocent person.

And Gil Garcetti, who sought and obtained many death judgments when he was the District Attorney of Los Angeles:  "California's death penalty does not and cannot function the way its supporters want it to. It is also an incredibly costly penalty, and the money would be far better spent keeping kids in school, keeping teachers and counselors in their schools and giving the juvenile justice system the resources it needs.  Spending our tax dollars on actually preventing crimes, instead of pursuing death sentences after they've already been committed, will assure us we will have fewer victims."

Judges, prosecutors and jurors across California, mirroring a nationwide trend, have become less enthused about capital punishment.  In 2011, California saw its death sentences drop by more than half to ten, the lowest number since 1978.

Andrew Cohen, in the Atlantic Monthly, suggests the reasons:

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty less often because of the prohibitive costs of capital cases. Judges and jurors have new sentencing options (like life in prison without parole). Politicians can no longer deny the unsettling number of wrongful convictions that have sent hundreds of innocent people to death row over the years. The Supreme Court has sent unmistakable signals to lower court judges to rein in trial excesses. And most of the civilized world has turned against the practice.

Cohen correctly notes that "California is one ballot initiative away from finally packing in its wretched excuse of a capital scheme."

The New York Times editorial explains that, "California’s system of government-hobbled-by-referendum means only the state’s voters can abolish the death penalty," and concludes:  "They should stop this madness of attempting to fix something that is immoral and simply cannot be fixed."

"They" means "us."  Signatures are currently being gathered to put the SAFE California Act on the November 2012 ballot.  If it passes it would replace California's multi‑billion dollar death penalty with life imprisonment without parole and require those convicted of murder to work and pay restitution to victim families through the victim compensation fund.  It would also set aside $100 million in budget saving for local law enforcement for the investigation of unsolved rape and murder cases.

Click here for more information, to donate, or to join the effort.

Cut The Death Penalty From California's Budget Woes

In the ongoing saga of California's budget crisis, automatic spending cuts will be triggered by the state's failure to meet its optimistic revenue projections as mandated by last summer's budget deal.  This will mean devastating cuts to public schools, higher education, subsidized child care for low income families, public libraries, public safety and other social services.

As it cuts critically important funds, the state continues to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into one government program that is expensive, arbitrary and ineffectual.  California's death penalty has been a costly failure, a state program that undermines rather than promotes public safety by gobbling up resources that could be far better utilized by law enforcement to investigate unsolved rapes and murders.  (On average, 46% of murders and 56% of rapes go unsolved in California every year.)

A study released by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and law professor Paul Mitchell found that California's death penalty system is currently costing the state about $184 million per year.  Further, "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions.  (California taxpayers spend an extra $100,000 every year just to house each of the 700-plus death row inmates compared to inmates serving life without parole.)

Not to mention the ever-present risk of executing an innocent person.  138 death row inmates have been exonerated nationally, including three people in California who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death but acquitted after a retrial or had charges dismissed. 

It is time to cut the death penalty.  The trigger is a ballot initiative that will replace the death penalty with life without parole and set aside $30 million a year, for three years, to solve open rape and murder cases.  And instead of being warehoused on death row for decades, inmates will work in high security prison and help victims by paying restitution into a victims' compensation fund.

You can join the effort to replace the death penalty by clicking here:  SAFE California.

Poster Child For California's Broken Death Penalty

David Murtishaw

Death row inmate David Murtishaw died Tuesday of a heart attack.  He was sentenced to death 32 years ago for the 1978 murder of three USC film students.  Had the crime occurred just nine months earlier, before the re-institution of California's death penalty law, the enormous costs attendant to capital punishment, both financial and otherwise, would have been avoided.

The California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ), after its extensive study of the state's death penalty system, concluded that with extremely rare exceptions, death sentences are unlikely ever to be carried out.  Former Chief Justice Ronald George acknowledged this when he testified before the CCFAJ and described it as "dysfunctional."  Indeed, the process for reviewing death sentences is “plagued with excessive delay” in the appointment of post-conviction counsel and a “severe backlog” in the Court’s review of appeals and habeas petitions.  CCFAJ's report found that it would be excessively costly to even attempt to make the system workable.  The reality is that California's death penalty is broken beyond repair. 

David Murtishaw's is a case in point.  Three trials.  Three state appeals. Three state habeas petitions.  One round of federal habeas proceedings.  Thirty-two years under sentence of death only to die of a heart attack.  (Since 1978, while there have been 13 executions, 55 condemned inmates have died from natural causes, 19 have committed suicide, six died from other causes.) 

In Murtishaw's first trial, serious errors by the trial judge, the prosecutor and Murtishaw's lawyer undermined the fairness of the verdict.  In 1981, based on one of these errors -- a prosecution expert's unreliable prediction of Murtishaw's future dangerousness -- the California Supreme Court reversed the death judgment, but left the underlying murder convictions in place. 

Rather than allow imposition of a sentence of life without possibility of parole, the D.A. sought and obtained another death sentence.  Murtishaw was tried and the jury was instructed, however, under the wrong death penalty statute, one that did not exist at the time of the crimes.  This time the California Supreme Court rejected Murtishaw's claims on appeal, but upon review in federal court the death sentence was again reversed, twenty years after it was overturned the first time.

The D.A. took Murtishaw's case to trial again in 2002, and once again Murtishaw received a death sentence.  The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment just this past February, almost ten years later.  Other state remedies were still pending when Murtishaw died. 

Three trials.  Three state appeals. Three state habeas corpus petitions.  One round of federal habeas proceedings.  Thirty-two years under sentence of death only to die of a heart attack.

This is madness.

A study released in by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon found that California's death penalty system is currently costing the state about $184 million per year.  Further, "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions."

If we replaced the death penalty with life without possibility of parole, then instead of decades of costly litigation that does nothing to make us safer, we would have more resources for investigating unsolved crimes.  (46% of murders and 56% of rapes go unsolved in California every year.)

It is crazy to continue to spend $184 million every year to perpetuate a system that is broken and beyond repair.  Join the effort to replace the death penalty by clicking here:  SAFE California.

California, Like Oregon, Has A "Compromised And Inequitable" Death Penalty System

I do not believe that those executions made us safer; certainly I don’t believe they made us more noble as a society.  -- Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber

When John Kitzhaber previously served as Oregon's Governor (from 1995 to 2003), he presided over the executions of Douglas Franklin Wright in 1996, and Harry Charles Moore in 1997.  Kitzhaber, who was again elected Governor last fall, admitted “they were the most agonizing and difficult decisions I have made as governor and I have revisited and questioned them over and over again during the past 14 years.”  There hasn't been an execution in Oregon since.

Gary Haugen was scheduled to be executed on December 6.  Haugen had given up his appeals and volunteered for execution to protest what he described as the arbitrary and vindictive nature of the death penalty.  (Wright and Moore had also waived their appeals.)

Kitzhaber granted a reprieve to Haugen on Tuesday, and announced he would not allow any executions to go forward as long as he is in office.  “I am convinced we can find a better solution that keeps society safe, supports the victims of crime and their families and reflects Oregon values,” he stated. “I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer."

With 37 inmates on death row in Oregon, many of whom have been there for more than 20 years,  Kitzhaber decried an “unworkable system that fails to meet basic standards of justice.”  Despite the wide sense the death penalty process is flawed, he maintained the state has “done nothing; we have avoided the question.”

Here in California we have strikingly similar problems only on a far larger scale.  We have over 700 men and women on death row, with an average wait of well over 20 years.  There have been 13 executions since the re-institution of the death penalty in 1977, and none since 2006. 

One difference from Oregon is that California's scheme has been extensively studied and its dysfunction conclusively established.  In 2008, the bi-partisan California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ) issued its report which found California's death penalty is “plagued with excessive delay” in the appointment of post-conviction counsel and a “severe backlog” in the Court’s review of appeals and habeas petitions.  According to CCFAJ's report, the lapse of time from sentence of death to execution constitutes the longest delay of any death penalty state.

With the largest death row in the country, CCFAJ reached a well-documented conclusion that common-sense already tells us:  “most California death sentences are actually sentences of lifetime incarceration.  The defendant will die in prison before he or she is ever executed.”  Indeed, “the backlog is now so severe that California would have to execute five prisoners per month for the next twelve years just to carry out the sentences of those currently on death row.”

A study released in June by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon found that California's death penalty system is currently costing the state about $184 million per year.  Further, "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions."

There are sixteen states without the death penalty, and another seven, like Oregon, which have not used it for over ten years.  As Gov. Kitzhaber noted, the last three that repealed their death penalty statutes  – Illinois, New Jersey and New Mexico – recognized the serious flaws and high costs of maintaining it.  California's death penalty, similarly, is costly, arbitrary, discriminatory, and unworkable.  It serves no useful purpose while diverting needed resources from true public safety programs.

The only way to end the death penalty in California is by a ballot initiative, and the statewide signature‑gathering effort to place such an initiative on the November 2012 ballot is well underway.  Over 100,000 signatures have been obtained but 500,000 are needed.  Join the effort by clicking here:  SAFE California.

Lessons From Occupy Oakland

My family went to Occupy Oakland last week to provide the protesters with food and art supplies.  It seemed like a good idea to not only explain to the kids what the anger and frustration was about, but to show them how people can get together and express that anger and frustration in a positive, hopefully meaningful, way, and also allow them to make their own small contribution to the effort. 

But now we have to explain what the police were doing days later, dispersing the very same peaceful crowd with tear gas, flash grenades, and rubber bullets. 

 

Occupy Oakland is planning to reconvene every day at 6pm at 14th & Broadway until the camp is reestablished.  Hopefully, the lesson to be drawn, when the protests and demonstrations return stronger than before, will be that bullying doesn't work. 

Or as Chris Hayes tweeted for the grownups:  “Note to police commissioners: every single time police suppress non-violent dissent with force and violence it makes #OWS stronger.”

The Numbers Are In, The Death Penalty Is Out

By James Clark, cross-posted from Huffington Post

Over the last few weeks, polls were released by several independent organizations that all point to one conclusion: Californians are ready to dump the death penalty.

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) and the Field Poll both show California voters' strong preference for life without the possibility of parole over the death penalty.
In the Field Poll released September 29, 48% of California voters opted for a sentence of life without the possibility of parole while only 40% chose the death penalty.

And Gallup Polling shows that American support for capital punishment has dropped dramatically over the past 20 years.

Jeanne Woodford, former death row warden and current spokesperson for the SAFE California Campaign, said, "We see [these poll results] as a historic shift that will carry us through to the elections."

SAFE CA is the new initiative to end California's death penalty on the November 2012 ballot. It's about replacing the death penalty with a safe and affordable public safety solution: life without the possibility of parole plus work and restitution.

More Californians chose that over the death penalty because they know it saves $184 million state tax dollars every year. A single execution is exorbitantly expensive -- $308 million - and most Californians can probably think of better ways to spend their money.

For the same cost, we could hire about 6,000 new police officers, or about 5,000 new fire fighters. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that hiring thousands more public employees would make a bigger positive impact on a community than would executing a single individual. And it's also worth pointing out that for the cost of a single execution, we could provide 2,865 children with a free k-12 education.

Californians care about their communities, and they care about education and public safety. They know that cash-strapped California has to invest its resources wisely, and they know that protecting and educating their families will always bring more bang for their buck than wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on one execution.

These polls show that California is on the verge of a major shift in public priorities. When the SAFE CA Act lands on the ballot in November 2012, voters will have a chance to put their taxpayer money where their mouths are and fund real solutions over empty "tough on crime" rhetoric.

Sign up now to volunteer with the SAFE CA campaign to ensure that our tax dollars are invested in our communities.