On January 17, 2006, California exe­cut­ed Clarence Ray Allen, who was 76 years old, legal­ly blind, dia­bet­ic, and used a wheel­chair. He was the last per­son the state has exe­cut­ed. A decade lat­er, California’s death row pop­u­la­tion has increased by 100 to 746, mak­ing it the largest in the nation. The state has exe­cut­ed 13 pris­on­ers in 40 years at an esti­mat­ed cost of $4 bil­lion, while more than 100 oth­er pris­on­ers have died on death row. Prisoners wait 11 – 15 years to be appoint­ed coun­sel, and the entire appeal process rou­tine­ly takes 20 – 25 years. In November 2015, California pro­posed a new, one-drug lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, but the pro­to­col can­not be imple­ment­ed until it goes through a pub­lic vet­ting process, which may take years, and then sur­vives legal chal­lenges. This November, California vot­ers may be pre­sent­ed with two com­pet­ing bal­lot mea­sures — one that aims to short­en the time between con­vic­tion and exe­cu­tion by speed­ing up the appeal process and anoth­er that would abol­ish the death penal­ty. A pri­or ref­er­en­dum to abol­ish the death penal­ty failed 48% to 52% in 2012. Commentators close to the issue say California’s death penal­ty isn’t work­ing. Jeanne Woodford, who worked at San Quentin for over 25 years and over­saw exe­cu­tions, said that many of those who were sen­tenced to death were young men, ​“the very peo­ple whose behav­ior changes over time.” Donald Heller, who wrote the ini­tia­tive that expand­ed California’s death penal­ty in 1978, said he did so based upon two assump­tions about the death penal­ty that have proven to be false: ​“The first was that it would deter mur­ders. The sec­ond: I assumed defen­dants would have com­pe­tent rep­re­sen­ta­tion.” He also voiced con­cerns about the poten­tial exe­cu­tion of inno­cent peo­ple: ​“If you have an imper­fect sys­tem tak­ing some­one’s life, it’s a lit­tle bit frightening.” 

(L. Segura, ​“Ten Years After Last Execution, California’s Death Row Continues to Grow,” The Intercept, January 17, 2016.) See Lethal Injection and Recent Legislation.

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