11-06-26 Bill to End the Death Penalty in California! // Proyecto de ley para abolir la pena de muerte en California! // 条例草案，以结束在加州死刑!

BAN ON DEATH PENALTY LEGISLATION WILL BE INTRODUCED ON MONDAY, JUNE 27TH - HANCOCK BILL WILL REPLACE DEATH PENALTY WITH PERMANENT IMPRISONMENT & CLOSE DEATH ROW BY CONVERTING EXISTING DEATH SENTENCES TO LIFE WITH NO PAROLE

Monday, June 27, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2009

Contact:
Larry Levin (916)651-4009


Sacramento – Senator Loni Hancock (D-Oakland) will introduce legislation on Monday, June 27th, to replace the death penalty in California with permanent imprisonment and to convert death penalty sentences to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.

Hancock is chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee and the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Corrections, which oversees all funding for the prison system.

Hancock will amend one of her existing bills, SB 490, on Monday, June 27th, and turn it into the vehicle for carrying her death penalty legislation.  The "new" bill will be printed and available on Tuesday, June 28th.  It is expected to have its first hearing in the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, July 5th, at 9:30 AM.

Also, Senator Hancock will discuss her new legislation in a live, one-on-one interview with host Jeffrey Callison on Capitol Public Radio's "Insight" program on Monday morning at 10 AM.  It can be heard live at this site:  http://www.capradio.org/insight

Senator Hancock’s legislation will be written as a statutory change to the law that will require both the Governor's signature and approval by voters in a Legislature-sponsored initiative that would be put on the November 2012 ballot.

“Capital punishment is an expensive failure and an example of the dysfunction of our prisons,” Hancock stated. “California's death row is the largest and most costly in the United States.  It is not helping to protect our state; it is helping to bankrupt us.”

Hancock announced her legislation after the Los Angeles Times reported last week on a new study that highlights the exorbitant cost of maintaining the death penalty.  The study projects that the cost of maintaining the death penalty will rise to $9 billion by 2030.  The study reports that taxpayers have already spent more than $4 billion on only 13 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978.

The report, "Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature's Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle," was written by U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon, a former prosecutor, and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell.   It will be published this week in the Loyola of Los Angeles
Law Review.

According to Senator Hancock, “Study after study has shown that capital punishment as a penalty is not a deterrent and that the multiple appeals that drag on for years and years multiply costs and add to the uncertainty and anxiety of victims.   The death penalty failings cannot be fixed; it must be repealed.  Distinguished prosecutors such as Los Angeles County’s long-time DA Gil Garcetti have come out against it.  It is time for the Legislature to act.”

Senator Hancock added, “It is not simply a cost issue.  More than a dozen people were wrongly executed in Illinois before that state banned the death penalty earlier this year.  I don’t want to see that kind of tragic statistic in California.  We need to join Illinois and the 15 other states that have chosen to substitute life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a failed death penalty.” 

“Today we’re not tough on crime; we’re tough on the taxpayer.  Every time we spend money on failed policies like the death penalty, we drain money from having more police officers on the street, more job training, more education, more of the things that would truly make for safer communities.

-End-

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PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO END THE DEATH PENALTY IN CALIFORNIA:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-cooper-execution-end-death-penalty-in-caifornia/

UPDATES:
1) December 15, 2020, Rabbi Michael Lerner, of Beyt Tikkun, Berkeley, and Tikkun (repair)  Magazine, endorsed the petition.

2) December 17, 2010, Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller,  UCLA Hillel, endorsed the petition, noting it as "important efforts".

3) December 19, 2010, Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz,  Founder & President of Uri L'Tzedek (Orthodox Social Justice Movement), Los Angeles, endorsed the petition.

4) December 20, 2010 Rabbi Sharon Brous, Ikar (The Essence) synagogue, Los Angeles endorsed the petition.

5) December 21, 2010 Dr William S Epps, Pastor of the Second Baptist Church, Los Angeles, endorsed the petition.

6) January 10, 2011 Rabbi Susan Leider, Temple Beth Am, Los Angeles endorsed the petition.

7) January 2011 -Target change: California Governor Jerry Brown (previously Governor Schwarzenegger)

8) March 2011: Death Penalty Abolished in Illinois! Governor cites %u201Cbroken system%u201D
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50440837/

9) June 22, 2011 New study by a US judge and law professor analyzes the Death Penalty in California:
http://prisonmovement.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/californias-costly-death-penalty/

10)  June 24, 2011 Florida�s death penalty is unconstitutional - Ruling by US Court
http://apublicdefender.com/2011/06/22/floridas-death-penalty-is-unconstitutional/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A APublicDefender %28a Public Defender%29

11) June 26, 2011 Bill to end the Death Penalty in California introduced by Senator Loni Hancock!
http://inproperinla.blogspot.com/2011/07/11-06-26-bill-to-end-death-penalty-in.html

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Joseph Zernik, PhD
Human Rights Alert (NGO)
 
Human Rights Alert is dedicated to discovering, archiving, and disseminating evidence of Human Rights violations by the justice systems of the State of California and the United States in Los Angeles County, California, and beyond. Human Rights Alert focuses on the unique role of computerized case management systems in the precipitous deterioration of the integrity of the justice system in the United States.
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http://www.examiner.com/x-38742-LA-Business-Headlines-Examiner
_____________________________
WHAT DID THE EXPERT SAY ABOUT THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS?
* Foreclosure fraud: The homeowner nightmares continue
CNN (April 7, 2011)
* About 3 million homes have been repossessed since the housing boom ended in 2006� That number could balloon to about 6 million by 2013
Bloomberg (January 2011)
* "...a system in which only the little people have to obey the law, while the rich, and bankers especially, can cheat and defraud without consequences."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50753639/
Prof Paul Krugman, MIT (2011)
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WHAT DID THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA?
* "...judges tried and sentenced a staggering number of people for crimes they did not commit."
Prof David Burcham, Dean, Loyola Law School, LA (2001)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/29043589/
* "This is conduct associated with the most repressive dictators and police states... and judges must share responsibility when innocent people are convicted."    
Prof Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, Irvine Law School (2001)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27433920/
* "Innocent people remain in prison"
* "...the LA Superior Court and the DA office, the two other parts of the justice system that the Blue Panel Report recommends must be investigated relative to the integrity of the system, have not produced any response that we know of..."
LAPD Blue Ribbon Review Panel Report (2006)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24902306 /
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WHAT DID THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN CALIFORNIA?
* "...corruption of the courts and the legal profession and discrimination by law enforcement in California."
United Nations Human Rights Council Staff Report (2010)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38566837/
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WHAT DID THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE STATE COURTS IN THE UNITED STATES?
* "On July 26, 2010, Laurence Tribe, Senior Counsel for the United States Department of Justice, Access to Justice Initiative, delivered an important speech to the Conference of Chief Justices, challenging them to halt the disintegration of our state justice systems before they become indistinguishable from courts of third world nations."
Prof Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law School (2010), per National Defender Leadership Institute (2010)
http://www.nlada.net/library/article/national_dojspeechto%20chiefjustice07-26-2010_gideonalert
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WHAT DID THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES?
* "More than 100 law professors have signed on to a letter released today that proposes congressional hearings and legislation aimed at fashioning "mandatory and enforceable" ethics rules for Supreme Court justices for the first time. The effort, coordinated by the liberal Alliance for Justice, was triggered by "recent media reports," the letter said, apparently referring to stories of meetings and other potential conflicts of interest involving Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas among others."
More than 100 law professors, as reported by the Blog of the Legal Times (February 2011)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49586436/
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WHAT DID CHIEF JUDGE OF THE US COURT OF APPEALS, 5TH CIRCUIT, SAY ABOUT THE US JUSTICE SYSTEM?
* "The American legal system has been corrupted almost beyond recognition..."
Chief Judge, US Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, Edith Jones, speaking before the Federalist Society of Harvard Law School (February 2003)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50137887/
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WHAT DID THE CHAIR OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE SAY ABOUT THE US JUSTICE SYSTEM?
* In a speech in Georgetown University, Senator Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee called for a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" on the US Department of Justice.
Transcript of Senator Leahy speech (2009)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38472251/
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