{"id":814,"date":"2011-05-06T11:11:50","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T15:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=814"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:57:40","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:57:40","slug":"it-isnt-1986-anymoreits-time-to-cut-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/05\/06\/it-isnt-1986-anymoreits-time-to-cut-this\/","title":{"rendered":"It isn\u2019t 1986 anymore\u2026It\u2019s time to CUT THIS!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #505050\"><em>Jessica Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">Although I\u2019ve been active in the Democratic party since the tender age of ten, when I stood outside of the Mill Valley Safeway handing out Clinton flyers, \u00a0I\u2019d never been to a Democratic Convention until last weekend.\u00a0 As an alternate delegate, I went to the convention primarily to assist with a campaign called \u201c<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110915082025\/http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Cut-This-The-Death-Penalty\/161383493922929?sk=info\">CUT THIS: The Death Penalty<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0The goal for the weekend was to pass a resolution calling on Governor Jerry Brown to convert the sentences of all the death row inmates to permanent incarceration and thereby save tax payers a billion dollars in the next five years.\u00a0 With the convention starting on the heels of the\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110915082025\/http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2011\/apr\/29\/local\/la-me-death-row-20110429\">Governor\u2019s statement<\/a>\u00a0last Thursday that it would be \u201cunconscionable\u201d to allocate $395 million to a new death row facility in the midst of the State\u2019s budget crisis, I had high hopes that CUT THIS would succeed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">To me, the resolution was a simple and necessary step. California\u2019s death penalty system is riddled with problems: \u00a0execution of innocents, insufficient resources for defense attorneys, biased trials, and the list continues. \u00a0But the Resolution Committee was not so easily swayed.\u00a0 To them, the resolution raised a ghost from the past that would blind voters and lead to the downfall of the Governor.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">The Resolution Committee chair waved a picture of\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110915082025\/http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rose_Bird\">Rose Bird<\/a>,\u00a0former California Supreme Court Chief Justice who was removed from office by voters, as he called for a vote to table the resolution. \u00a0The audience began to hiss.\u00a0 \u201cThis isn\u2019t 1986 anymore\u201d cried out the brunette standing next to me.\u00a0 Exactly, I thought. \u00a0At the time of the Conservative smear campaign which depicted Bird as anti-death penalty and ultimately contributed to her removal from the bench, both California and National politics were much different than they are today.\u00a0 Back then it may have also been political suicide to support fair pay for women or a black man for president.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">The national decline of support for the death penalty has become a regular headline in the past few years.\u00a0 Executions have dropped since their one-time high of 98 in 1999 to 46 last year, and there have been over 138 exonerations from death row since the mid 1970\u2019s, leading the public to\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110915082025\/http:\/\/092.me\/\">question<\/a>\u00a0the accuracy of capital trials.\u00a0 With legislation to either abolish or limit the application of the death penalty introduced in\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110915082025\/http:\/\/www.deathpenaltyinfo.org\/recent-legislative-activity\">19 states<\/a>\u00a0this year, including some of the more conservative states such as Texas and Georgia, anti-death penalty sentiment has become a trend.\u00a0 Perhaps the resolution committee should have taken note of the recent poll conducted by\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110915082025\/http:\/\/www.aclunc.org\/docs\/criminal_justice\/death_penalty\/april2011dppoll.pdf\">David Binder Research<\/a>\u00a0showing that 64% of Californian\u2019s (including 58% of Republicans) support commutations of the 713 death row inmates.\u00a0 Hopefully, these facts will be considered by the Executive Board of the California Democrats this July when they meet and revisit passing CUT THIS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jessica Jackson Although I\u2019ve been active in the Democratic party since the tender age of ten, when I stood outside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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