California Votes: Propositions 62 and 66

Posted on Oct 03, 2016

This November, Californians face impor­tant votes on two bal­lot ini­tia­tives relat­ed to the death penal­ty: Prop 62 and Prop 66. Prop 62 pro­pos­es to repeal the death penal­ty in California and replace it with impris­on­ment for life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, while Prop 66 pro­pos­es to speed up the process of adju­di­cat­ing cap­i­tal appeals in state court through a num­ber of com­plex adjust­ments to the process. Both propo­si­tions would require pris­on­ers to work in prison to pay resti­tu­tion to the fam­i­ly mem­bers of homicide victims.

The Death Penalty Information Center is a nation­al non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion serv­ing the media and the pub­lic with analy­sis and infor­ma­tion on issues con­cern­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The goal of this report is to pro­vide vot­ers with impar­tial analy­sis con­cern­ing Props 62 and 66, to fact check both cam­paigns, and ensure that Californians have every­thing they need to make an informed choice on November 8.

Explain the Propositions Top

This sec­tion shows the offi­cial argu­ments writ­ten by the Prop 62 and 66 cam­paigns and includ­ed in the California Voter Guide, along with analy­sis and addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the Death Penalty Information Center. Arguments that are ver­i­fied by DPIC research are high­light­ed in green, while argu­ments that are known to be false or mis­lead­ing are high­light­ed in red. Arguments that may be incom­plete, unver­i­fied, or oth­er­wise poten­tial­ly mis­lead­ing are high­light­ed in yel­low. Click the foot­note num­ber of each high­light to see DPIC’s explanation.

Proposition 62: Repeal the death penalty 

California’s death penal­ty sys­tem has failed. Taxpayers have spent more than $5 bil­lion since 1978 to car­ry out 13 exe­cu­tions, a cost of $384 mil­lion per exe­cu­tion. 1

The death penal­ty is an emp­ty promise to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and car­ries the unavoid­able risk of exe­cut­ing an innocent person.

YES ON 62 REPLACES THIS COSTLY, FAILED SYSTEM WITH A STRICT LIFE SENTENCE AND ZERO CHANCE OF PAROLE

Under Prop. 62, the death penal­ty will be replaced with a strict life sen­tence. Those con­vict­ed of the worst crimes will NEVER be released. Instead of being housed in expen­sive pri­vate cells on death row, mur­der­ers will be kept with oth­er max­i­mum-secu­ri­ty inmates.2

WORK AND RESTITUTION

Criminals who would oth­er­wise sit on death row and in court­rooms dur­ing the decades-long appeals guar­an­teed by the Constitution will instead have to work and pay resti­tu­tion to their vic­tims’ fam­i­lies.3
 

REAL CLOSURE FOR VICTIMS’ FAMILIES4
 

“California’s death penal­ty sys­tem is a long, ago­niz­ing ordeal for our fam­i­ly. As my sister’s killer sits through count­less hear­ings, we con­tin­u­al­ly relive this tragedy. The death penal­ty is an emp­ty promise of jus­tice. A life sen­tence with­out parole would bring real clo­sure.” Beth Webb, whose sis­ter was mur­dered with sev­en oth­er peo­ple in a mass-shoot­ing at an Orange County hair salon.

HUGE COST SAVINGS CONFIRMED BY IMPARTIAL ANALYSIS

The state’s inde­pen­dent Legislative Analyst con­firmed Prop. 62 will save $150 mil­lion per year.5 A death row sen­tence costs 18 times more than life in prison. Resources can be bet­ter spent on edu­ca­tion, pub­lic safe­ty, and crime pre­ven­tion that actu­al­ly works.6

DEATH PENALTY SYSTEM FLAWS RUN DEEP

California has not exe­cut­ed any­one in 10 years because of seri­ous prob­lems. For near­ly 40 years, every attempt­ed fix has failed to make the death penal­ty sys­tem work. It’s sim­ply unwork­able.7

“I pros­e­cut­ed killers using California’s death penal­ty law, but the high costs, end­less delays and total inef­fec­tive­ness in deter­ring crime con­vinced me we need to replace the death penal­ty sys­tem with life in prison with­out parole.” John Van de Kamp, for­mer Los Angeles District Attorney and for­mer California Attorney General.

THE RISK OF EXECUTING AN INNOCENT PERSON IS REAL

DNA tech­nol­o­gy and new evi­dence have proven8 the inno­cence of more than 150 peo­ple on death row after they were sen­tenced to death.9 In California, 66 peo­ple had their mur­der con­vic­tions over­turned because new evi­dence showed they were inno­cent.10

Carlos DeLuna was exe­cut­ed in 1989, but an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion lat­er proved his inno­cence.11
 

FORMER DEATH PENALTY ADVOCATES: YES ON 62

“I led the cam­paign to bring the death penal­ty back to California in 1978. It was a cost­ly mis­take. Now I know we just hurt the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies we were try­ing to help and wast­ed tax­pay­er dol­lars. The death penal­ty can­not be fixed. We need to replace it, lock up mur­der­ers for good, make them work, and move on.” Ron Briggs, led the cam­paign to cre­ate California’s death penalty system.

www​.YesOn62​.com

JEANNE WOODFORD, Former Death Row Warden

DONALD HELLER, Author of California’s Death Penalty Law

BETH WEBB, Sister of Victim Murdered in 2011
 

Proposition 66: Expedite death penalty appeals 

California’s elect­ed law enforce­ment lead­ers, police offi­cers, front­line pros­e­cu­tors, and the fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims12 ask you to REFORM the California death penal­ty sys­tem by vot­ing YES ON PROPOSITION 66!

We agree California’s cur­rent death penal­ty sys­tem is bro­ken.13 The most heinous crim­i­nals14 sit on death row for 30 years, with end­less appeals delay­ing jus­tice and cost­ing tax­pay­ers hun­dreds of millions.

It does not need to be this way.

The solu­tion is to MEND, NOT END, California’s death penalty.

The solu­tion is YES on PROPOSITION 66.

Proposition 66 was writ­ten to speed up the death penal­ty appeals sys­tem while ensur­ing that no inno­cent per­son is ever exe­cut­ed.15

Proposition 66 means the worst of the worst killers receive the strongest sen­tence.16

Prop. 66 brings clo­sure to the fam­i­lies of vic­tims.17

Proposition 66 pro­tects pub­lic safe­ty these bru­tal killers have no chance of ever being in soci­ety again.18

Prop. 66 saves tax­pay­ers mon­ey, because heinous crim­i­nals will no longer be sit­ting on death row at tax­pay­er expense for 30+ years.19

Proposition 66 was writ­ten by front­line death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tors who know the sys­tem inside and out. They know how the sys­tem is bro­ken, and they know how to fix it. It may sound com­pli­cat­ed, but the reforms are actu­al­ly quite simple.

HERE’S WHAT PROPOSITION 66 DOES:

  1. All state appeals should be lim­it­ed to 5 years.20
  2. Every mur­der­er sen­tenced to death will have their spe­cial appeals lawyer assigned imme­di­ate­ly. Currently, it can be five years or more before they are even assigned a lawyer.21
  3. The pool of avail­able lawyers to han­dle these appeals will be expand­ed.22
  4. The tri­al courts who han­dled the death penal­ty tri­als and know them best will deal with the ini­tial appeals.23
  5. The State Supreme Court will be empow­ered to over­see the sys­tem and ensure appeals are expe­dit­ed while pro­tect­ing the rights of the accused.
  6. The State Corrections Department (Prisons) will reform death row hous­ing; tak­ing away spe­cial priv­i­leges from these bru­tal killers and sav­ing mil­lions.24

Together, these reforms will save California tax­pay­ers over $30,000,000 annu­al­ly, accord­ing to for­mer California Finance Director Mike Genest, while mak­ing our death penal­ty sys­tem work again.25

WE NEED A FUNCTIONING DEATH PENALTY SYSTEM IN CALIFORNIA

Death sen­tences are issued rarely and judi­cious­ly, and only against the very worst mur­der­ers.26

To be eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty in California, you have to be guilty of first-degree mur­der with ​“spe­cial circumstances.”

These spe­cial cir­cum­stances include, in part:

  • Murderers who raped/​tortured their victims.
  • Child killers.
  • Multiple murderers/​serial killers.
  • Murders com­mit­ted by ter­ror­ists; as part of a hate-crime; or killing a police officer.

There are near­ly 2,000 mur­ders in California annu­al­ly. Only about 15 death penal­ty sen­tences are imposed.27

But when these hor­ri­ble crimes occur, and a jury unan­i­mous­ly finds a crim­i­nal guilty and sep­a­rate­ly, unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mends death, the appeals should be heard with­in five years, and the killer executed.

Help us pro­tect California,28 pro­vide clo­sure to vic­tims,29 and save tax­pay­ers mil­lions30

Visit www​.NoProp62YesProp66​.com for more information.

Then join law enforce­ment and fam­i­lies of vic­tims and vote YES ON PROPOSITION 66!

JACKIE LACEY, District Attorney of Los Angeles County

KERMIT ALEXANDER, Family Member of Multiple Homicide Victims

SHAWN WELCH, President

Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriffs Association

Race Top

Prop 62 advo­cates say:Prop 66 advocates say:
Justice Is Not Blind for African American and Latino Communities.

African Americans and Latinos make up near­ly 67 per­cent of California’s death row pop­u­la­tion. Our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is unequal, and the California death penal­ty sys­tem per­pet­u­ates inequal­i­ty and bias based on race, geog­ra­phy, and the abil­i­ty to afford a good lawyer.

Isn’t the death penal­ty racially biased?

36% of con­demned inmates are African-American, 34% are Caucasian, 24% are Hispanic, and 6% are oth­er races. Studies con­sis­tent­ly fail to find any dis­cernible bias against minor­i­ty defen­dants, includ­ing those con­duct­ed by anti-death-penalty advocates.

Source: yeson62​.comSource: noprop62ye​sprop66​.com

Race and the death penal­ty is a com­pli­cat­ed issue that is reflect­ed in a vari­ety of ways, and whether sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence of racial bias is found may often depend upon the ques­tion that is asked. Advocates of Prop 62 claim that minori­ties are over­ly rep­re­sent­ed on death row, while advo­cates of Prop 66 claim that stud­ies have shown no bias against minor­i­ty defen­dants. While the rep­re­sen­ta­tions by advo­cates of Prop 62 are clos­er to the truth, nei­ther side’s claims tell the full story.

It is true that African Americans and Latinos make up 67% of death row while they only make up 45% of the state pop­u­la­tion. However, as death penal­ty pro­po­nents point out, the fact that minor­i­ty groups are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly rep­re­sent­ed on death row does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly mean that they are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly rep­re­sent­ed because of racial bias in the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty itself.31 Indeed, minor­i­ty groups are sim­i­lar­ly over­rep­re­sent­ed in many oth­er areas of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. One may make the case that the death penal­ty is racial­ly biased because it has a dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact on minor­i­ty groups, but, as pro­po­nents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment argue, that is not the same as say­ing that the death penal­ty dis­crim­i­nates against individual defendants.

Another prob­lem with assess­ing whether the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty is racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry is that the choice whether to seek and impose the death penal­ty is made at the coun­ty lev­el, and when the data are looked at on the state or nation­al lev­el, it may dis­tort or mask the evi­dence of dis­crim­i­na­tion in indi­vid­ual coun­ties.32 An analy­sis of California’s death penal­ty in the 1990s, when a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the state’s death row pris­on­ers were tried and con­vict­ed, found sig­nif­i­cant geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in death sen­tenc­ing prac­tices that had pro­found race effects. The study found that coun­ties that had low­er pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty and less racial diver­si­ty in their pop­u­la­tions had the high­est death-sen­tenc­ing rates. In those coun­ties, defen­dants who were accused of killing White, non-Latino vic­tims were more like­ly to be sen­tenced to death than oth­er homi­cide defen­dants, regard­less of the how aggra­vat­ed the mur­ders were.33

The death penal­ty sys­tem in California and across the United States has shown to be racial­ly biased in many ways oth­er than sim­ply the pro­por­tion of racial and eth­ic minori­ties who are sen­tenced to death. These include the role played by the race of the vic­tim, jury selec­tion prac­tices and the racial make­up of the jury, and the impact of geography.

Race of the victim 

Nearly 80% of peo­ple who have been exe­cut­ed were sen­tenced to death for killing White vic­tims, even though in soci­ety as a whole about half of all mur­der vic­tims are African-American. Studies have con­sis­tent­ly shown that the race of the vic­tim is a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in deter­min­ing who is sen­tenced to death.

A study of race in California’s death penal­ty pub­lished in the Santa Clara Law Review concluded:

  • Those who kill non-Latino whites are more than three times more like­ly to be sen­tenced to die as those who kill African-Americans.
  • Those who kill non-Latino whites are more than four times more like­ly to be sen­tenced to die as those who kill Latinos.

See: Santa Clara Law Review, ​“The Impact of Legally Inappropriate Factors on Death Sentencing for California Homicides, 1990 – 1999.”

Racial discrimination in juries 

One way that racial dis­crim­i­na­tion can play a role in the death penal­ty is through the exclu­sion of minori­ties from serv­ing on juries. The Constitution requires that pros­e­cu­tors who exclude minori­ties from juries pro­vide race-neu­tral rea­sons for the exclu­sion, how­ev­er there have been many cas­es in which pros­e­cu­tors are found to exclude non-white jurors sole­ly because of their race.

In California specif­i­cal­ly, one recent report iden­ti­fied poten­tial racial bias in cas­es in Riverside and Kern Counties. The study report­ed that in 2011, California Supreme Court Justices Werdegar and Moreno dis­sent­ed in a Riverside County cap­i­tal case that involved an African-American defen­dant because of race bias in jury selec­tion and because the rea­sons pros­e­cu­tors gave for excus­ing sev­er­al Black prospec­tive jurors were unsup­port­ed by the evi­dence. The study also found that, ​“Earlier this year a California appel­late court reversed a Kern County case on race dis­crim­i­na­tion grounds after the pros­e­cu­tion struck each of the Black prospec­tive jurors and pro­vid­ed implau­si­bly race-neu­tral grounds for one of those strikes, mis­char­ac­ter­ized the prospec­tive juror’s words, and argued exten­sive­ly with defense coun­sel about whether the juror was Black or not.”

See: Fair Punishment Project, Too Broken to Fix Part I: An In-depth Look at America’s Outlier Death Penalty Counties.

In addi­tion, evi­dence sug­gests that the exclu­sion of minor­i­ty jurors may have race- and class-based con­se­quences. A 2014 mock-jury study of more than 500 men and women who had report­ed for jury ser­vice in Southern California found that White jurors were more like­ly to impose a death sen­tence upon a poor Latino defen­dant than upon a sim­i­lar­ly sit­u­at­ed White defen­dant, espe­cial­ly when the mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence pre­sent­ed in the hypo­thet­i­cal sce­nario was weak. Latino jurors, on the oth­er hand, imposed the death sen­tence at about the same rate, regard­less of the eth­nic­i­ty and social sta­tus of the defen­dant or the strength of the mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence.34

Geography 

The loca­tion of the crime and the juris­dic­tion of the pros­e­cu­tion are oth­er fac­tors that sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact who is sen­tenced to die. The Santa Clara Law Review found ​“clear region­al dis­par­i­ties in death sen­tenc­ing, with coun­ties that have a low­er pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty and a high­er pro­por­tion of non-Hispanic whites in their pop­u­la­tions to have the high­est rates of death sentences.”

The Fair Punishment Project recent­ly iden­ti­fied 10 ​“out­lier coun­ties” that use the death penal­ty at a high­er rate than oth­er coun­ties in the U.S. Five of these coun­ties were locat­ed in Southern California: Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino. In Riverside County, the rate of death sen­tences per 100 homi­cides was near­ly nine times the rate for the rest of the state. Some fac­tors iden­ti­fied that con­tributed to the high­er rates of death sen­tences in these coun­ties includ­ed overzeal­ous pros­e­cu­tions, inad­e­quate defense, racial bias and jury exclu­sions, and exces­sive pun­ish­ment in sentencing.

See: Fair Punishment Project, Too Broken to Fix Part I: An In-depth Look at America’s Outlier Death Penalty Counties.

Resources for more information on race and the death penalty 

Death Penalty Information Center, Race and the Death Penalty

DPIC Podcast, Race and the Death Penalty

Innocence Top

Prop 62 advo­cates say:Prop 66 advocates say:

Mistakes are inevitable and can’t be undone.

DNA tech­nol­o­gy and new evi­dence have proven the inno­cence of more than 150 peo­ple on death row around the country.

Are there suf­fi­cient pro­tec­tions in place to make cer­tain an inno­cent per­son is not executed?

Yes. There is no evi­dence that the state of California has ever exe­cut­ed an inno­cent per­son. This was con­firmed by the Alarc/​Mitchell study of 2012, which con­duct­ed an exten­sive exam­i­na­tion of the use of the death penal­ty in California over the past sev­er­al decades. The find­ings of that study were:

“California has approached the imple­men­ta­tion of its death penal­ty sys­tem with cau­tion and, as a result, no evi­dence has been pre­sent­ed that the pros­e­cu­tion of per­sons accused of cap­i­tal crimes has result­ed in the exe­cu­tion of some­one who was innocent.”

Source: yeson62​.comSource: noprop62ye​sprop66​.com

There is always a risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. The Death Penalty Information Center main­tains a list of indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death who are lat­er exon­er­at­ed, which cur­rent­ly lists 156 peo­ple includ­ing 3 from California (see below).

The risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son has also been doc­u­ment­ed in oth­er states. For a list of peo­ple exe­cut­ed despite strong evi­dence sug­gest­ing inno­cence, see exe­cut­ed-pos­si­bly-inno­cent

California may have already exe­cut­ed an inno­cent per­son. Substantial evi­dence has been cit­ed to sug­gest that Thomas Thompson, exe­cut­ed in 1998, may have been inno­cent. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals over­turned Thompson’s con­vic­tion, but were over­ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court on pro­ce­dur­al grounds based on a missed dead­line. For more, see the LA Times edi­to­r­i­al, California has exe­cut­ed 13 men since reviv­ing the death penal­ty. Was one of them inno­cent?, and Judge Stephen Reinhardt’s law review arti­cle, The Anatomy of An Execution: Fairness ver­sus ​“Process.”

Several inmates on California’s death row have cur­rent­ly pend­ing claims of actu­al inno­cence. For exam­ple, numer­ous fed­er­al judges have expressed doubt regard­ing the con­vic­tion of Kevin Cooper.

Proposition 62’s solu­tion to the prob­lem of inno­cent peo­ple on death row is to replace the death penal­ty with life in prison with­out parole, remov­ing the risk of exe­cut­ing an innocent person.

Proposition 66 includes pro­vi­sions intend­ed to pro­tect an inno­cent per­son sen­tenced to death, but, accord­ing to Barry Scheck, co-founder of the nation­al Innocence Project, ​“its poor­ly writ­ten pro­vi­sions will increase the risk of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent.” Prop 66 advo­cates tout the pro­ce­dur­al safe­guards present in the cur­rent cap­i­tal appeals process as rea­son to believe inno­cent peo­ple will not be exe­cut­ed in California. Prop 66, how­ev­er, would sig­nif­i­cant­ly alter that process and, in so doing, would remove existing protections.

Prop 66 requires appeals lawyers to under­take cap­i­tal cas­es if they wish to con­tin­ue han­dling oth­er crim­i­nal appeals, whether or not they are will­ing and qual­i­fied to han­dle cap­i­tal cas­es. Some who are qual­i­fied have refused to accept appoint­ments in cap­i­tal cas­es because the cur­rent com­pen­sa­tion for their ser­vices and the resources cur­rent­ly avail­able to retain inves­ti­ga­tors and experts is insuf­fi­cient for them to prop­er­ly pre­pare and present a cap­i­tal case. Under Prop 66, the state court appeal must be filed with­in one year of the attor­ney being appoint­ed, and must be resolved with­in five years. In many of the cas­es of inno­cence doc­u­ment­ed by DPIC, evi­dence of police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct that led to wrong­ful con­vic­tions and death sen­tences, and excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence affir­ma­tive­ly estab­lish­ing a death row prisoner’s inno­cence was dis­cov­ered far more than five years after the con­vic­tion or appoint­ment of appel­late coun­sel. The short inves­ti­ga­tion and plead­ing dead­lines and the dead­lines for decid­ing cap­i­tal cas­es place arbi­trary lim­its on when evi­dence of inno­cence may be pre­sent­ed to and con­sid­ered by the courts. And the appoint­ment of unqual­i­fied or unwill­ing lawyers with inad­e­quate time and resources to inves­ti­gate and devel­op evi­dence of inno­cence or uncov­er evi­dence of poten­tial police or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct fur­ther increas­es the risk that death row pris­on­ers will be unable to mean­ing­ful­ly devel­op and present their claims of inno­cence to the court, that excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence wrong­ful­ly sup­pressed by the pros­e­cu­tion will remain undis­cov­ered, and that police or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct that led to wrong­ful con­vic­tions and death sen­tences will remain undetected.

Prop 66 also cre­ates new court rules that make it more hard­er for a death row pris­on­er to obtain judi­cial review of an inno­cence claims after the arti­fi­cial dead­lines imposed by the propo­si­tion. For a claim of inno­cence to be pur­sued after those dead­lines, Prop 66 requires the court to pre­judge the mer­its of the evi­dence and deter­mine that the pris­on­er is like­ly to be inno­cent. Prop 66 cre­ates a new stan­dard for this, requir­ing the judge to weigh all evi­dence ​”includ­ing evi­dence that may not be admis­si­ble in court”and deter­mine if the inmate is inno­cent by a ​“pre­pon­der­ance of the evi­dence” (more like­ly than not). Only if the pris­on­er per­suades the judge that he or she is ​“like­ly” inno­cent may the judge enter­tain appeals after the now-short­ened dead­line, or after the first appeal has been decid­ed. This stan­dard replaces the exist­ing appeal process, in which a judge can dis­miss a claim of actu­al inno­cence only after hear­ing the claim. This pro­vi­sion also sub­stan­tial­ly decreas­es the pro­tec­tions cur­rent­ly in place to safe­guard against the exe­cu­tion of an innocent person.

For more infor­ma­tion about inno­cence and the death penal­ty, see: Innocence and Death Penalty.

California’s Death Row Exonerees: 

Ernest (Shujaa) Graham California Conviction: 1976, Acquitted: 1981 

In November 1973, while incar­cer­at­ed in a state prison facil­i­ty, Ernest Graham and co-defen­dant Eugene Allen were charged with killing a state cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer. Graham’s first tri­al result­ed in a mis­tri­al when the jury could not agree on a ver­dict. Graham was sen­tenced to death in 1976 after his sec­ond tri­al. The Supreme Court of California reversed the con­vic­tion because pros­e­cu­tors improp­er­ly used their peremp­to­ry chal­lenges to exclude prospec­tive jurors who were black. Graham’s third tri­al end­ed in anoth­er hung jury, and he was acquit­ted by the jury in his fourth tri­al. (Phone con­ver­sa­tion with now Magistrate-Judge James Larson, October 6, 2003, who represented Graham).

Troy Lee Jones California Conviction: 1982, Charges Dismissed: 1996 

The California Supreme Court ruled in June 1996 that Jones should have a new tri­al because he was not ade­quate­ly defend­ed at his orig­i­nal tri­al for the mur­der of Carolyn Grayson in 1981 (In re Troy Lee Jones on Habeas Corpus, 917 P.2d 1175 (1996)). The Court found that the defense attor­ney failed to con­duct an ade­quate pre­tri­al inves­ti­ga­tion, speak with pos­si­ble wit­ness­es, obtain a rel­e­vant police report, or seek pre­tri­al inves­tiga­tive funds. Moreover, the attor­ney elicit­ed dam­ag­ing tes­ti­mo­ny against his own client dur­ing cross exam­i­na­tion of a wit­ness. The pros­e­cu­tion announced that it was drop­ping all charges against Jones in November 1996, after he had been on death row for 14 years. (Associated Press, 11/​19/​96).
Read ​“California Death Sentence” by Dan Goodin in The Recorder

Oscar Lee Morris California Conviction: 1983, Charges Dismissed: 2000 

Morris was con­vict­ed in 1983 and sen­tenced to death. His death sen­tence was vacat­ed by the California Supreme Court in 1988. Although the court did not over­turn his con­vic­tion, it lat­er ordered an evi­den­tiary hear­ing when the state’s chief wit­ness against Morris issued a deathbed recan­ta­tion. After the evi­den­tiary hear­ing, the Los Angeles County Superior Court grant­ed Morris a new tri­al. Prosecutors decid­ed not to retry the case and Morris was freed in 2000. (L.A. Daily Journal, October 29, 2002).

Additional former death row inmates in California 

Three oth­er for­mer death row inmates were acquit­ted of the charges for which they were sen­tenced to death, how­ev­er they are not includ­ed in DPIC’s inno­cence data­base because of oth­er non-cap­i­tal charges. Lee Farmer, Patrick Croy, and Jerry Bigelow were each con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death, and lat­er had their con­vic­tions over­turned. Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle arti­cle.

Costs Top

Prop 62 advo­cates say:Prop 66 advocates say:

The state’s inde­pen­dent Legislative Analyst con­firmed Prop 62 will save $150 mil­lion per year. A death row sen­tence costs 18 times more than life in prison. Resources can be bet­ter spent on edu­ca­tion, pub­lic safe­ty, and crime pre­ven­tion that actually works.

Constitutionally man­dat­ed appeals and spe­cial death row facil­i­ties cost tax­pay­ers $150 mil­lion every year.

Californians have spent $5 bil­lion since 1978 to put 13 peo­ple to death, at a cost of $384 mil­lion per execution.

Isn’t it true that the death penal­ty costs much more than life without parole?

No. In fact, life with­out parole is much more expen­sive than a prop­er­ly imple­ment­ed death penal­ty. Opponents argue that hous­ing and long-term med­ical costs sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase death row expen­di­tures. However, the actu­al facts do not sup­port this claim. California would save mil­lions of dol­lars in hous­ing and med­ical care by stream­lin­ing the process and exe­cut­ing death row inmates as the courts have ordered, thus reliev­ing the tax bur­den borne by all California citizens.

Source: yeson62​.comSource: noprop62ye​sprop66​.com

The costs of the death penal­ty in California (and oth­er states) have been stud­ied mul­ti­ple times, with all stud­ies demon­strat­ing that the death penal­ty costs more than life without parole.

Studies in California include the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (2008), the Loyola Law School report Executing the Will of the Voters (2012), and most recent­ly a fol­low up report from Loyola Law School California Votes 2016. Each of these reports showed that many fac­tors sub­stan­tial­ly increase the cost of the death penal­ty over life with­out parole. Some of these fac­tors include spe­cial hous­ing require­ments, increased tri­al costs, and lengthy appeals.

The claims made by Prop 62 advo­cates that the death penal­ty costs 18 times more than a life with­out parole sen­tence, and that California pays rough­ly $150 mil­lion per year total­ing $5 bil­lion since 1978, are sup­port­ed by research stud­ies of California’s death penalty.

Advocates of Prop 66 claim, on the oth­er hand, that life with­out parole is more expen­sive than ​“a prop­er­ly func­tion­ing death penal­ty.” This claim is not sup­port­ed by evi­dence, either in California or in any other state.

Prop 66 attempts to save money by: 

  • Shortening the appeals process and exe­cut­ing inmates faster
  • Getting rid of spe­cial hous­ing rules for death row

But it also costs money by: 

  • Training a large num­ber of new lawyers for death penalty defense
  • Adding to the case­load of state courts
  • Paying more defense attor­neys to resolve state death row appeals faster
  • Potentially increas­ing the length and com­plex­i­ty of fed­er­al habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ings, with atten­dant costs to state and federal taxpayers.

No study of the death penal­ty in any state in the U.S. has shown that the death penal­ty is less expen­sive than life with­out parole. In every state in which the cost of the death penal­ty has been stud­ied, research has shown that the added costs asso­ci­at­ed with the death penal­ty exceed the costs of a life with­out parole sentence.

The claim made by the Prop 66 cam­paign is based on the hypo­thet­i­cal sys­tem envi­sioned by Prop 66, which its advo­cates argue will save mon­ey. However, there is no basis to believe that the sys­tem cre­at­ed by Prop 66 will actu­al­ly achieve the intend­ed result of so sys­tem­i­cal­ly expe­dit­ing exe­cu­tions that it will cost less than life without parole.

The pri­ma­ry basis for the claim that Prop 66 will save mon­ey is the five-year time lim­it imposed on appeals and remov­ing the spe­cial hous­ing con­di­tions on death row. However, this argu­ment does not take into account the addi­tion­al costs required to imple­ment Prop 66 and the new time limits.

In order to imple­ment these time lim­its, Prop 66 increas­es the pool of attor­neys avail­able to defend death row inmates, both by low­er­ing the qual­i­fi­ca­tions and by requir­ing non-death penal­ty attor­neys who take state appoint­ed appeals to also accept death penal­ty appeals. This pro­vi­sion includes sub­stan­tial costs that Prop 66 advo­cates have not account­ed for. First, con­script­ing unwill­ing lawyers to han­dle cap­i­tal cas­es is expect­ed to result in lit­i­ga­tion over the ade­qua­cy of attor­ney pay­ments and resources nec­es­sary to inves­ti­gate and present death penal­ty claims and whether the state can require lawyers to under­take cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion as a pre­con­di­tion for con­tin­u­ing to han­dle their nor­mal appel­late cas­es. Assuming those pro­vi­sions sur­vive con­sti­tu­tion­al review, large num­ber of attor­neys will then have to be trained to meet the qual­i­fi­ca­tions for death penalty defense.

Prop 66 also diverts state appeals from the California Supreme Court to local courts. In order to meet the five-year time lim­it for appeals, local coun­ty courts will be required to absorb hun­dreds of new cas­es on top of their cur­rent case loads. The legal fees to address these cas­es, both to pay for the court costs and to pay the increased pool of defense attor­neys, and the admin­is­tra­tive costs of addi­tion­al court per­son­nel are not tak­en into account in the claims made by Prop 66 advocates.

Who Supports? Top

Law Enforcement 

Law Enforcement for Prop 62Law Enforcement for Prop 66
Jeanne Woodford
Former Death Row Warden at San Quentin State Prison
John Van de Kamp
Former Attorney General of California
Cruz Reynoso
Former California Supreme Court Justice
Don Heller
Author of California’s Death Penalty Law in 1978
George Gascon
District Attorney of San Francisco
Gil Garcetti
Former District Attorney of Los Angeles
Tom Parker
Former FBI Agent
Norman Fletcher
Former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice
Christine Pelosi
Former Deputy District Attorney of San Francisco
Jan Karowsky
Former Deputy DA of Sacramento County
Kathy Marousek
Former Deputy District Attorney of Fresno County
Bruce Enos
Former Deputy District Attorney of Sonoma County
Valerie Plame
Former Covert CIA Operations Officer
Steve Boreman
Former Deputy Attorney General of California
Diane Goldstein
Retired Redondo Beach Police Captain
Frank Ochoa
Former Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge
Lawrence J. Simi
Former Chair of the California Commission on Judicial Performance
Lynda Leigh
Formerly with California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Soledad Correctional Training Facility
Carl Coleman
Undercover Citizen Operative, Special Crimes, Sarasota Police Department, Florida
Barbara Parker
Oakland City Attorney
Jerry Hurtubise
Former City Attorney of San Francisco
Frank Thompson
Former Warden of Oregon’s Death Row Prison
Darryl Stallworth
Former Deputy District Attorney of Alameda County
Karyn Sinunu-Towery
Former Assistant District Attorney of Santa Clara County
Morgan Taylor
Former Deputy District Attorney of Monterey County
Anthony Troy
Former Attorney General of Virginia
The Hon. James F. Stiven
United States District Court, Southern California (ret.)
Patrick Boyd
Former Associate Warden
Steve Hodel
Former Los Angeles Police Department Homicide Detective III
Margot Krystian, PhD
Former California State Parole Agent and Assistant Unit Supervisor
Dewey Willis
Former California Youth Authority Institutional Superintendent
Tony Rackauckus
Orange County District Attorney
Mike Ramos
San Bernardino County District Attorney
Anne Marie Schubert
Sacramento County District Attorney
Jackie Lacey
Los Angeles County District Attorney
Lisa Smittcamp
Fresno County District Attorney
Lisa Green
Kern County District Attorney
Greg Totten
Ventury County District Attorney
Steve Wagstaffe
San Mateo County District Attorney
Amanda Hopper
Sutter County District Attorney
Mike Hestrin
Riverside County District Attorney
Cliff Newell
Nevada County District Attorney
Gilbert Otero
Imperial County District Attorney
Scott Owens
Placer County District Attorney
Mark Peterson
Contra Costa County District Attorney
Krishna Abrams
Solano County District Attorney
Kirk Andrus
Siskiyou County District Attorney
Lawrence Allen
Sierra County District Attorney
Dan Dow
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney
Bonnie Dumanis
San Diego County District Attorney
Birgit Fladager
Stanislaus County District Attorney
Dean Flippo
Monterey County District Attorney
Eric Heryford
Trinity County District Attorney
David Hollister
Plumas County District Attorney
Vern Pierson
El Dorado County District Attorney
John Poyner
Colusa County District Attorney
Jeff Reisig
Yolo County District Attorney
Todd Riebe
Amador County District Attorney
Tim Ward
Tulare County District Attorney
Pat McGrath
Yuba County District Attorney
Don Anderson
Lake County District Attorney
Stacey Montgomery
Lassen County District Attorney
Candice Hooper
San Benito County District Attorney
James Cooke
Mariposa County District Attorney
Laura Krieg
Tuolumne County District Attorney
Lisa Green
Kern County District Attorney
Steve Cooley
Former Los Angeles County District Attorney
Jan Scully
Former Sacramento County District Attorney
Jim McDonnell
Los Angeles County Sheriff
Scott Jones
Sacramento County Sheriff
John McMahon
San Bernardino County Sheriff
Adam Christianson
Stanislaus County Sheriff
John D’Agostini
El Dorado County Sheriff
Sandra Hutchens
Orange County Sheriff
Greg Munks
San Mateo County Sheriff
Keith Royal
Nevada County Sheriff
Donny Youngblood
Kern County Sheriff
Ed Prieto
Yolo County Sheriff
Tom Bosenko
Shasta County Sheriff
Ian Parkinson
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff
Margret Mims
Fresno County Sheriff
J. Paul Parker
Sutter County Sheriff
Lou Blanas
Former Sacramento County Sheriff
John McGinness
Former Sacramento County Sheriff
Jon Lopey
Siskiyou County Sheriff
Rick DiBasilio
Calaveras County Sheriff
Tim Standley
Sierra County Sheriff
Mike Downey
Humboldt County Sheriff
Doug Binnewies
Mariposa County Sheriff
Bill Brown
Santa Barbara County Sheriff
Greg Ahern
Alameda County Sheriff
Bruce Haney
Trinity County Sheriff
Rick Stephens
Alpine County Sheriff
Bill Lutze
Inyo County Sheriff
Martin Ryan
Amador County Sheriff
Steve Durfor
Yuba County Sheriff
Edward Bonner
Placer County Sheriff
Stephen Scherb
Retired Parole Agent
M. David Stirling
Former Chief Deputy to the Attorney General
Teri Bella
Retired CA Corrections
Eric Coulter
Retired Police Officer

State and national leaders and elected officials 

State and nation­al lead­ers and elect­ed offi­cials for for Prop 62State and nation­al lead­ers and elect­ed offi­cials for for Prop 66
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter
Former President and First Lady of the United States
Bernie Sanders
United States Senator, VT, and for­mer Democratic Party Presidential Candidate
Martin O’Malley
Former Democratic Party Presidential Candidate
Gary Johnson
Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate
Dolores Huerta
Civil Rights Activist
Gavin Newsom
Lieutenant Governor of California
Ron Briggs
Led Campaign for California’s Death Penalty Law in 1978
John J. Donohue III, Phd.
Economics and Law Professor, Stanford Law School
Mark White
Former Governor of Texas
John Burton
Chairman of the California Democratic Party
Hilda Solis
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
Jared Huffman
California’s 2nd District
Barbara Lee
California’s 13th District
Anna Eshoo
California’s 18th District
Zoe Lofgren
California’s 19th District
Ted Lieu
California’s 33rd District
Karen Bass
California’s 37th District
Loretta Sanchez
California’s 46th District
Anthony Rendon
California State Assembly Speaker, 63rd District
Bill Monning
California State Senate Majority Leader
Mark Leno
California State Senate 11th District
Toni Atkins
Assembly Speaker Emeritus, California State Assembly 78th District
Cristina Garcia
California State Assembly 58th District, Co-Chair California Legislative Women’s Caucus
Loni Hancock
California State Senate 9th District
Steve Glazer
California State Senate 7th District
Phil Ting
California State Assembly 19th District
Rob Bonta
California State Assembly 18th District
Kevin McCarty
California State Assembly 7th District
Sam Liccardo
Mayor of San Jose
Libby Schaaf
Mayor of Oakland
Helene Schneider
Mayor of Santa Barbara
Robb Davis
Mayor of Davis
Darrell Steinberg
Mayor-Elect of Sacramento
Antonio Villaraigosa
Former Mayor of Los Angeles
Madison Nguyen
Former Vice Mayor of San Jose
Pete Wilson
36th Governor, CA
George Deukmejian
35th Governor, CA
Ed Royce
Congressman, 39th District, Los Angeles, Orange County
Mimi Walters
Congresswoman, 45th District, Orange County
Cathleen Galgiani
State Senator, District 5, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Sacramento Counties
Jeff Stone
State Senator, District 28, Riverside County
Young Kim
Assemblywoman, Orange County
James Bozajian
Mayor, City of Calabasas
Harry Sidhu
Former Anaheim City Councilmember
Mike Spence
Councilmember, West Covina City Council
Kevin Kiley
Assistant Attorney General
Judge Quentin L. Kopp
San Mateo County Superior Court, Retired
John McAuliffe
Consultant/​California Expert on Death Penalty
Ourania Riddle
2015 HJTA Taxpayer Fighter of the Year
Todd Rubinstein
Rubinstein Group

Family Members 

Family Members of Victims for for Prop 62Family Members of Victims for for Prop 66
  • Sarah Apfel
  • Robyn Barbour
  • Susan Benson
  • Deborah Brown
  • Vic Burton
  • Kathryn Butterfield
  • Ronnie Carmona
  • Michael Cole
  • Anita Coolidge
  • Phyllis Davies
  • Jaoana Dean
  • Richard DiMatteo
  • Manetric Douglas
  • Marilyn Dresser
  • Wendy Fast
  • Angelo Festa
  • Jo Ann Fishburn
  • Rosa Gaines
  • Janis Gay
  • Abba Gayle
  • Casey Hancock
  • Lyle Henry
  • Aundra Herron
  • Rev. Charles C. Hensel
  • Forrest Hopping
  • Michael Hubbard
  • Susan Karlin
  • Holly Kukkonen
  • Peter Levin
  • David Matt
  • Patrick McDonald
  • Deldelp Medina
  • Fred Morrison
  • Irene Killian de Ojeda
  • Clifford O’Sullivan Jr.
  • Barbara Ridley
  • Eileen Robinson
  • Sam Reese Sheppard
  • Aqeela Sherrills
  • Dean Sigler
  • Veronica Slaughter
  • Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan, Jr.
  • Denise Taylor
  • Brian Todd
  • Tanya Varner
  • Tyra Vickers
  • Nancy Vollersten
  • Beth Webb
  • Amanda & Nick Wilcox
  • Dionne Wilson
  • Charles Wolfe
  • Theda Zaretsky
  • Donya Airola
  • Kermit and Tami Alexander
  • Noreen Anthony-Tabar
  • David Akinaga
  • Tony Andrade
  • John Berry (Redlands Tea Party Patriots)
  • Mike Boehm
  • Jane and Bill Bouffard
  • Richard Breidenthal
  • Andi Bridges
  • Lee Bunyard
  • Catherine Burke
  • Colene and Gary Campbell
  • Donna Canepa
  • Gene Cervantes (Citizens Against Homicide)
  • Maureen Craig
  • Brenda Daly
  • Kathleen DiGregorio
  • Richard Faria
  • Kathy Farrar
  • Misty Gray
  • Philip Gibbons
  • Dawn Hall
  • Kenneth Hambrick
  • Michele Hanisee
  • Matthew Hardy
  • Kay Harris
  • Susan Hittle
  • Bill Hughes
  • Mary Ann Hughes
  • Jennifer Jake Ibarra
  • Misty Johansen
  • Lisa Johst
  • David Keller
  • Ronald Lee (Ronald Otis Lee, LTD)
  • Lotous Lenguyen
  • Phyllis Loya
  • David Lukenbill
  • Richard Malouf
  • Jeremy Marsh
  • Den McDonald
  • Josh Mehraban
  • Tammy Mitchell (Victims of Violent Crimes Advocate)
  • Tonia Monroe
  • Joshua Moody
  • April Nunez
  • Sandee Ogilvie
  • Manuel Ortiz
  • Kathy Patterson
  • John Peters
  • Rebecca Petty
  • Gary Pietila
  • Christine Proffitt
  • Elliot Rouff
  • Stephanie Ruiz
  • John Russell
  • Margaret Smethers
  • Wendy Solorio
  • Anne Stendel
  • Heidi Steiner
  • Jeanine Tuttle
  • Kevin VanKleef
  • Trina Walker
  • Steve Wells
  • Patricia Wenskunas (Founder and CEO, Crime Survivors)
  • James Wichmann
  • Matt Wilmes
  • Phillip Wyman

    Organizational Support 

    Organizations for Prop 62Organizations for Prop 66
    • California Democratic Party
    • Libertarian Party of California
    • California NAACP
    • Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
    • California Labor Federation
    • SEIU California
    • AFSCME California People
    • California Nurses Association
    • 18 Million Rising
    • ACLU of Northern California
    • ACLU of Southern California
    • ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties
    • American Ethical Union
    • Amnesty International USA
    • Bend the Arc
    • California Partnership
    • CA Council of Community Behavioral Health Agencies
    • Dolores Huerta Foundation
    • Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
    • Evolve CA
    • Forward Together
    • Friends Committee on Legislation of California
    • Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club
    • JusticeFaith Ministries
    • Lutheran Office of Public Policy of California
    • National Center for Lesbian Rights
    • Peace and Freedom Party
    • University of California Students Assocation
    • William C. Velasquez Institute

    Faith Organizations

    • Abrahamic Faiths Peacemaking Initiative
    • Catholics Against the Death Penalty Southern California
    • Church of the Foothills Peace, Benevolence and Justice Ministry
    • Council on American-Islamic Relations Los Angeles
    • Kehilla Community Synagogue
    • Office of Social Ministry of the Diocese of San Diego
    • Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development
    • Religious Sisters of Charity Culver City Retirement Home
    • Sisters of the Holy Family (Fremont)
    • St. Camillus Associates Community (Los Angeles)
    • Pax Christi Southern California
    • American Muslim Voice Foundation
    • Black Jewish Justice Alliance
    • Muslim Public Affairs Council

    Legal Associations

    • Bar Association of San Francisco
    • California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
    • Criminal Defense Lawyers Club of San Diego
    • Criminal Trial Lawyers Association of Northern California (CTLA/​NC)
    • California Catholic Conference
    • Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)
    • Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE)
    • Rainbow PUSH Coalition
    • League of Women Voters of California
    • California Federation of Teachers
    • Equality California

    Death Penalty & Justice Reform Organizations

    • 8th Amendment Project
    • 90 Million Strong Campaign
    • California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
    • California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty
    • California Public Defenders Association
    • Center for Restorative Justice Works
    • Death Penalty Focus
    • Equal Justice Initiative
    • Equal Justice Society
    • Equal Justice USA
    • Exonerated Nation
    • Homeboy Industries
    • Justice Not Jails
    • LatinoJustice PRLDEF
    • Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation
    • National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
    • National Legal Aid and Defender Association
    • Southern Center for Human Rights
    • Witness To Innocence
    • Local Organizations
    • Amnesty International Group 22 (Pasadena)
    • Center on Policy Initiatives (San Diego)
    • Community Coalition (South Los Angeles)
    • Community Resource Initiative (San Francisco)
    • El Excentrico Magazine Project (San Jose Region)
    • LA Progressive
    • Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC)
    • Robert F. Kennedy Democratic Club
    • Sunday Assembly Los Angeles
    • Youth Justice Coalition

    Humanists

    • American Humanist Association
    • Bay Area Humanists
    • Humanist Association of the Monterey Bay Area
    • Humanists of the San Joaquin Valley (Fresno area)
    • Humanist Association of Orange County
    • Humanist Association of the Greater Sacramento Area
    • Humanist Association of San Diego
    • The Humanist Chaplaincy at USC
    • The Humanist Community of Silicon Valley
    • The Humanist Community-Ventura County
    • Humanist Fellowship of San Diego
    • Humanist Society of Redding
    • Stanislaus Humanists
    • Assoc. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs
    • Assoc. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs
    • Bakersfield Police Officers Assoc.
    • California Assoc. of Highway Patrolman
    • California Police Chiefs Assoc.
    • California Correctional Peace Officers Assoc.
    • California Peace Officers’ Association
    • California Statewide Law Enforcement Assoc.
    • California State Sheriffs’ Association
    • Chula Vista Police Officers Assoc.
    • Contra Costa County Deputy Sheriffs Assoc.
    • Deputy Sheriffs’ Assoc. of San Diego
    • Fraternal Order of Police, LA County Lodge 1
    • Law Enforcement Managers Assoc.
    • Local 1613, National Border Patrol Council
    • Long Beach Police Officers Assoc.
    • Los Angeles Police Protective League
    • Los Angeles Professional Peace Officers Assoc.
    • Los Angeles School Police Assoc.
    • Oceanside Police Officers Assoc.
    • Peace Officers Research Assoc. of California (PORAC)
    • Professional Peace Officers Assoc.
    • Riverside Sheriffs’ Assoc.
    • Sacramento Deputy Sheriffs Assoc.
    • Sacramento Law Enforcement Managers Assoc.
    • San Bernardino County Safety Employees Benefit Assoc.
    • San Diego Deputy Sheriffs
    • San Diego Police Officers Assoc.
    • San Francisco Police Officers Assoc.
    • San Jose Police Officers Assoc.
    • San Mateo County Deputy Sheriff’s Assoc.
    • Santa Ana Police Officers Assoc.
    • Southern California Alliance of Law Enforcement (SCALE)
    • Ventura County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association

    Editorial Support 

    Editorials favor­ing Prop 62Editorials favor­ing Prop 66
    Footnotes

    1. All legal experts have agreed that California’s cur­rent death penal­ty sys­tem does not func­tion as designed. See: California Costs Study↩︎

    2. Currently death row inmates are housed in a spe­cial unit in San Quentin. Prop 62 allows pris­on­ers to be re-assigned to oth­er California pris­ons, where they will be treat­ed sim­i­lar­ly to oth­er inmates. Prop 66 would also re-assign these pris­on­ers to oth­er California pris­ons with­out elim­i­nat­ing the death penalty.↩︎

    3. Currently death row inmates do not work in prison because of their spe­cial sta­tus as death row inmates. By elim­i­nat­ing the death penal­ty, Prop 62 would reclas­si­fy these inmates sim­i­lar­ly to other inmates.↩︎

    4. “Closure” for vic­tims is a com­pli­cat­ed emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal process that varies dras­ti­cal­ly from per­son to per­son. Voters should not infer that all fam­i­lies of vic­tims expe­ri­ence ​“clo­sure” in the same way. See: Closure? The Execution Was Just the Start And: VICTIMS: Murder Victim’s Daughter Says ​“Broken” Death Penalty Doesn’t Bring Closure and is ​“A Waste”↩︎

    5. Financial sav­ings from Prop 62 have been con­firmed by impar­tial analy­sis and the expe­ri­ence of oth­er states that have repealed the death penal­ty. Prop 62 con­tains no pro­vi­sions that may incur unfore­seen costs. See Fiscal Impact.↩︎

    6. Prop 62 con­tains no pro­vi­sions that re-allo­cate mon­ey saved to edu­ca­tion or oth­er spe­cif­ic expen­di­tures. Financial sav­ings would be reflect­ed in the state’s General Fund for use in any government expenditure.↩︎

    7. California has attempt­ed numer­ous leg­isla­tive changes to the death penal­ty sys­tem in the past 40 years, but exe­cu­tions have remained infrequent.↩︎

    8. While more than 150 peo­ple have been exon­er­at­ed from death row, their exon­er­a­tions were not nec­es­sar­i­ly because of DNA tech­nol­o­gy and new evi­dence. In some cas­es, courts found the evi­dence pre­sent­ed at tri­al to be insuf­fi­cient to have jus­ti­fied a pros­e­cu­tion in the first place. In a few cas­es, courts found police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct to be so egre­gious that, after over­turn­ing the wrong­ful con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, they barred the pros­e­cu­tion from seek­ing to retry the defendant.↩︎

    9. The Death Penalty Information Center main­tains a list of peo­ple sen­tenced to death who were lat­er exon­er­at­ed. Currently that list includes 156 peo­ple. See: Innocence List.↩︎

    10. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 68 peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der in California and anoth­er 5 con­vict­ed of manslaugh­ter have been exonerated.↩︎

    11. For more infor­ma­tion about Carlos DeLuna see: INNOCENCE: New Evidence That Texas May Have Executed an Innocent Man↩︎

    12. Families of mur­der vic­tims are a diverse group of indi­vid­u­als who remain divid­ed on the issue of the death penal­ty. Many fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims sup­port Prop 66 and many oth­ers sup­port the alter­na­tive Prop 62. Voters should not infer that all mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers agree. See: Victims and the Death Penalty↩︎

    13. All legal experts have agreed that California’s cur­rent death penal­ty sys­tem does not func­tion as designed. See: California Cost Study. In 2014, a fed­er­al dis­trict court declared ​“the dys­func­tion­al admin­is­tra­tion of California’s death penal­ty sys­tem” to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. That rul­ing was lat­er over­turned on pro­ce­dur­al grounds with­out address­ing the dis­trict court’s under­ly­ing find­ings of fact.↩︎

    14. Studies sug­gest that defen­dants who are sen­tenced to death have not nec­es­sar­i­ly com­mit­ted the ​“most heinous” crimes and that those who com­mit ​“the most heinous crimes” do not nec­es­sar­i­ly receive the death penal­ty. For instance, a study of the 205 death-eli­gi­ble homi­cides pros­e­cut­ed in Connecticut rat­ed the ​“egre­gious­ness” of the mur­der­ers’ con­duct and com­pared the con­duct of those who were sen­tenced to death with those who were found guilty but ulti­mate­ly not sen­tenced to death. Only 1 of the 9 defen­dants who were sen­tenced to death fell with­in the 15% of cas­es con­sid­ered most ​“egre­gious,” and the oth­ers ranked between 33rd and 170th on the scale of egre­gious­ness. Donohue, An Empirical Evaluation of the Connecticut Death Penalty System Since 1973: Are There Unlawful Racial, Gender, and Geographic Disparities?↩︎

    15. Prop 66 actu­al­ly weak­ens pro­tec­tions for inno­cent peo­ple. According to Barry Scheck, co-founder of the nation­al Innocence Project, ​“its poor­ly writ­ten pro­vi­sions will increase the risk of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent.”↩︎

    16. Prop 66 has no effect on which defen­dants are charged with cap­i­tal mur­der and which are ulti­mate­ly sen­tenced to death. Nor does it include any pro­vi­sions to ensure that death sen­tences will be car­ried out only against ​“the worst of the worst killers.”↩︎

    17. “Closure” vic­tims is a com­pli­cat­ed emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal process that varies great­ly from per­son to per­son. Voters should not infer that all fam­i­lies of vic­tims expe­ri­ence ​“clo­sure” the same way. A University of Minnesota study report­ed that just 2.5% of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and close friends said they achieved clo­sure as a result of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, while 20.1% said the exe­cu­tion did not help them heal. And a study pub­lished in the Marquette Law Journal report­ed that vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers expe­ri­enced improved phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal health and greater sat­is­fac­tion with the legal sys­tem in cas­es in which defen­dants received life sen­tences, rather than death sen­tences. See STUDIES: Death Penalty Adversely Affects Families of Victims and Defendants; Closure? The Execution Was Just the Start; and VICTIMS: Murder Victim’s Daughter Says ​“Broken” Death Penalty Doesn’t Bring Closure and is ​“A Waste.”↩︎

    18. There is no evi­dence that Prop 66 will pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty or afford cur­rent death-row pris­on­ers any less of a ​“chance of ever being in soci­ety again” than would Prop 62’s pro­posed rem­e­dy of resen­tenc­ing those cur­rent­ly on death row to life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. On the relat­ed ques­tion of whether the death penal­ty is a deter­rent at all, the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science reviewed more than three decades of stud­ies on the sub­ject and deter­mined that the research ​“is not infor­ma­tive about whether cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment decreas­es, increas­es, or has no effect on homi­cide rates.” It rec­om­mend­ed that the research should ​“not be used to inform delib­er­a­tions requir­ing judg­ments about the effect of the death penal­ty on homi­cide.” The NRC’s 2012 report con­clud­ed that stud­ies claim­ing that the death penal­ty had any deter­rent effect on mur­der were fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed. DETERRENCE: National Research Council Concludes Deterrence Studies Should Not Influence Death Penalty Policy. A 2015 study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University exam­ined the poten­tial caus­es of the dra­mat­ic drop in crime in the U.S. in the 1990s and 2000s and con­clud­ed that the death penal­ty had no effect on the decline. STUDIES: Death Penalty Had No Effect on Reducing Crime. See also Facts About Deterrence and the Death Penalty.↩︎

    19. The finan­cial impact of Prop 66 is uncer­tain and includes both poten­tial sav­ings and increased costs. See Fiscal Impact. By com­par­i­son, the sav­ings antic­i­pat­ed by Prop 66 pro­po­nents amount to 20% of the sav­ings to tax­pay­ers that would be real­ized if Prop 62 were adopted.↩︎

    20. Currently state appeals to death sen­tences last an aver­age of 15 – 25 years. The method of enforc­ing the pro­posed 5‑year lim­it under Prop 66 is unclear. Further, evi­dence of inno­cence and of police or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct is often not dis­cov­ered for many years, and some­times not for decades. As a result, the arti­fi­cial 5‑year time lim­it imposed by Prop 66 has been crit­i­cized as increas­ing the risk that inno­cent death row pris­on­ers, and par­tic­u­lar­ly those who were con­vict­ed or sen­tenced to death as a result of police or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct will be wrongfully executed.↩︎

    21. One cause of delay in the cur­rent sys­tem is the num­ber of qual­i­fied appeals lawyers avail­able. Prop 66 pro­pos­es to train more appeals lawyers and require them to accept death row cas­es. The imple­men­ta­tion and fund­ing for this ini­tia­tive remains unclear.↩︎

    22. One cause of delay in the cur­rent sys­tem is the num­ber of qual­i­fied appeals lawyers avail­able. Prop 66 pro­pos­es to train more appeals lawyers and require them to accept death row cas­es. The imple­men­ta­tion and fund­ing for this ini­tia­tive remains unclear.↩︎

    23. Another cause of delay in the cur­rent sys­tem is the back­log of appeals at the State Supreme Court. This mea­sure would re-assign those cas­es to tri­al courts. Supporters of Prop 66 claim that shift­ing these appeals from the Supreme Court to the Trial Court will increase the speed of res­o­lu­tion, but do not explain how.↩︎

    24. Currently death row inmates are housed in a spe­cial unit in San Quentin. Although they are sub­ject to extreme restric­tions based on their sta­tus as death row pris­on­ers, they also receive cer­tain spe­cial priv­i­leges. Prop 66 allows pris­on­ers to be re-assigned to oth­er California pris­ons, where they will be treat­ed sim­i­lar­ly to oth­er inmates. Resentencing these pris­on­ers to life with­out parole, as would occur under Prop 62, would have the same effect.↩︎

    25. The finan­cial impact of Prop 66 is uncer­tain and includes both poten­tial sav­ings and increased costs. If it pro­duced the $30 mil­lion in cost sav­ings its pro­po­nents expect, that would be a cost sav­ings that is an esti­mat­ed $120 mil­lion less per year than Prop 62 is expect­ed to achieve. See Fiscal Impact.↩︎

    26. The rar­i­ty or preva­lence of death sen­tences in California depends more upon the coun­ty in which the pros­e­cu­tion takes place than the sever­i­ty of the crime for which a death sen­tence is issued. A study of California’s use of the death penal­ty through­out the decade of the 1990s showed that numer­ous legal­ly inap­pro­pri­ate fac­tors con­tributed to death sen­tenc­ing across the state. For instance, it found that those charged with killing White, non-Hispanic vic­tims were more like­ly to be sen­tenced to death than oth­er homi­cide defen­dants, irre­spec­tive of the com­par­a­tive egre­gious­ness of the mur­ders. It also found sig­nif­i­cant geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in death sen­tenc­ing prac­tices, with coun­ties that have a low­er pop­u­la­tion den­si­ty and a high­er pro­por­tion of non-Hispanic Whites in their pop­u­la­tions to have the high­est rates of death sen­tences. See: Legally Inappropriate Factors. Over the peri­od 2010 – 2015, five California coun­ties each imposed more death sen­tences than 99.5% of the coun­ties in the rest of the United States: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Kern. See: Too Broken. In 2015, Riverside County by itself account­ed for 16% of all the new death sen­tences imposed in the United States. See DPIC 2015 Year End Report.↩︎

    27. Since 2001 the annu­al num­ber of death sen­tences issued in California has ranged from a high of 30 to a low of 9. In 2015 California had the high­est num­ber of new death sen­tences in the nation with 14. See: Sentencing↩︎

    28. There is no evi­dence that the death penal­ty pro­motes pub­lic safe­ty or pro­tects cit­i­zens any bet­ter than the sen­tenc­ing alter­na­tive of life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.↩︎

    29. A University of Minnesota study report­ed that just 2.5% of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and close friends said they achieved clo­sure as a result of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, while 20.1% said the exe­cu­tion did not help them heal. See STUDIES: Death Penalty Adversely Affects Families of Victims and Defendants↩︎

    30. .a66-19

    31. Racial and eth­nic minori­ties may, for exam­ple, be over­rep­re­sent­ed on death row in part because homi­cide rates are asso­ci­at­ed with pover­ty and Blacks and Latinos are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly poor. A more accu­rate mea­sure of racial dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty would then be the per­cent­age of African Americans and Latinos on death row as com­pared to the per­cent­age of homi­cides that are com­mit­ted by racial and ethnic minorities.↩︎

    32. For exam­ple, if pros­e­cu­tors in Atlanta or Philadelphia sought the death penal­ty in a low­er per­cent­age of mur­ders than pros­e­cu­tors in sub­ur­ban or rur­al Georgia or Pennsylvania coun­ties, and juries imposed the death penal­ty less fre­quent­ly in those cities, statewide analy­sis of the data would sug­gest that the death penal­ty may be imposed less fre­quent­ly against black defen­dants across the state than against oth­er defen­dants. But when the data are looked at on the coun­ty lev­el, the real­i­ty may be that the death penal­ty is imposed upon minor­i­ty defen­dants at high­er rates than against White defen­dants both in urban coun­ties and in sub­ur­ban or rural counties.↩︎

    33. See: Legally Inappropriate Factors.↩︎

    34. See Studies: White Jurors More Likley to Recommend Death Sentences for Latino Defendants.↩︎