{"id":902,"date":"2011-07-05T09:07:26","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T13:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=902"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:52:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:52:50","slug":"california-introduces-bill-to-abolish-capital-punishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/07\/05\/california-introduces-bill-to-abolish-capital-punishment\/","title":{"rendered":"California Introduces Bill to Abolish Capital Punishment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessica Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n

Last Monday I opened the paper and discovered that I might soon be out of a job.\u00a0 Unlike the hundreds of teachers who received pink slips this year, I was filled with delight.\u00a0 As an employee of a California state entity that represents death row inmates in their appeals, I am excited to see abolishing the death penalty being introduced onto the ballot.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Setting aside the typical tenets of a death penalty argument:\u00a0 the moral aspects of state killing, the risk of innocent people being executed, execution wrought with error imposed by improperly trained guards, or the debate over whether or not the death penalty even fulfills its purpose as a deterrent, the capital punishment controversies have come to focus on the cost.\u00a0 According to\u00a0a recent study<\/a>\u00a0that prompted Sen. Loni Hancock of Berkeley to introduce the bill to abolish the death penalty in California, capital punishment in the state has cost taxpayers over 4 billion dollars since it was reenacted in 1978.\u00a0 In that time, California public schools have continued to take financial hits resulting in draconian funding cuts for classroom programs, huge increases in class size, fewer school supplies for children to use, and numerous teacher layoffs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last spring Governor Brown\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that he had decided not to move forward with building a new death row to house the ever-growing population of inmates.\u00a0 The governor stated that it would be \u201cunconscionable to earmark $365 million for a new and improved death row facility while making severe cuts to education and programs that serve the most vulnerable among us.\u201d\u00a0 Applying this logic to the study\u2019s results, which showed that California taxpayers spend $184 million per year on capital punishment, it seems equally unconscionable to continue to throw taxpayer money at having a death penalty when our schools and social programs have been hit so hard.<\/p>\n

While many argue that we should reduce spending on capital cases, that is simply not an option.\u00a0 Public defenders offices have taken extreme cuts, which have reduced their resources and ability to provide adequate assistance for the accused.\u00a0 After a conviction, a defendant is given appellate counsel who may spend many more years trying to correct the deficiencies and errors that occurred during the trial, by properly investigating the crime, conducting necessary tests that trial counsel lacked resources to complete, consulting essential experts, and making appropriate legal arguments.\u00a0 Without these constitutionally required steps the penal system would lose an important safeguard against injustice.<\/p>\n

Hancock\u2019s bill<\/a>\u00a0seeks to abolish the death penalty and convert the death sentences of those already on death row to life without a possibility or parole.\u00a0 While this is also an extremely harsh sentence, it has essentially the same effect as the death penalty. A vast number of death row prisoners, over four times as many as have been executed, have died of natural causes while awaiting execution since its reenactment.<\/p>\n

Speaking as a mother of a second grader in a California public school and an employee of a state agency that represents death row inmates, I\u2019d much rather be looking for a new job than see my daughter denied a proper public education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Jackson Last Monday I opened the paper and discovered that I might soon be out of a job.\u00a0 Unlike […]<\/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 center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-ey","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}