California

by Jeremy Leaming

Advocates for repealing the death penalty say there are hopeful signs that 2012 will see great progress toward their goal, Politico reports.

Efforts are underway in California, Kansas, Ohio, Maryland and Connecticut to dump the use of the death penalty. Politico notes, “Advocates say the coming year could be their best opportunity yet to replace the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole in these states, pointing to shifts in public opinion, rising concern over execution costs, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s recent decision to place a moratorium on capital punishment, and Troy Davis’s high-profile execution galvanizing opposition to the death penalty.”

Diann Rust-Tierney, head of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told Politico that Davis’s case helped spark greater attention to how states employ capital punishment. “That was a sad but stark example to folks of how broken the system is,” Rust-Tierney said.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said, “Any of those [state efforts] could succeed, but they’re all teed up for this coming year."

As Politico notes, the SAFE California Campaign, which is working to place an initiative before voters next year to abolish the death penalty, has cited the enormous costs – in the billions – of carrying out the death penalty in a state burdened with significant budgetary woes .  

In a Dec. 2 guest post for ACSblog, Andrew Love, a death penalty lawyer in California, noted, “A study released 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.'"

Stephen Gutwillig, director of the Drug Policy Alliance that spearheaded the Proposition 19 movement, told the Los Angeles Times, "This has been a watershed moment. Even in defeat, Proposition 19 has moved marijuana legalization into the mainstream of American politics." He continued that supporters of legalization would push ballot measures in 2012 in "Washington, Oregon, Colorado and very likely California."

The newspaper also noted, "More than four decades after the war on drugs was declared, the country is almost evenly divided on whether to legalize marijuana. (Although Gil Kerlikowske, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has said that it is time for the nation to move beyond the so-called "War on Drugs," he did oppose Proposition 19.)

Josh Harkinson, blogging for Mother Jones on yesterday's vote, wrote:

As 4:20 faded into the late afternoon, it became clear that Prop 19 was headed for defeat. Even so, pot activists still had reason enough to party. Their campaign has taken legalization debate mainstream, and they'll all probably try again in 2012. They gathered in a parking lot outside Oaksterdam University, the cannabis cultivation school owned by Richard Lee, Prop 19's biggest financial backer. Pot smoke occasionally wafted through the air, and there wasn't a cop in sight who gave a damn.

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan has more reaction to the outcome over the ballot measure here.