We, the
comrades of Unit 1012, are truly well aware that once the death penalty is
abolished, the ACLU Demons will want to end LWOP.
We, the comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, DO NOT TRUST them at all and we know that they
are nothing but liars who value the lives of murderers and evildoers, with the
plan on putting innocent people’s lives at risk of getting murdered. These
Anti-Death Penalty Activists are all the ACLU
Demons.
 |
|
A condemned inmate is led out of his cell on death row at San Quentin
State Prison. Proposition 62 would repeal California’s death penalty and
replace it with life without parole. Eric Risberg The Associated Press
|
California
Has a Plan to Ban Executions, But Death Row Inmates Hate It
"They are better off, in a sense,
being sentenced to death."
Nov. 3, 2016 5:00 AM
INTERNET SOURCE: http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/california-death-row-inmates-proposition-62
On Election
Day, California voters will choose between two competing ballot measures: Proposition
62, which would abolish the death penalty in the state, and Prop. 66, which
would speed up the execution process. If both pass, the one with the
most votes will supersede the other. If neither passes, California's death
penalty system will remain unchanged.
A recent poll indicates that Prop. 66 is on track to be approved,
but Prop. 62 is facing some stiff opposition—including from some death row
inmates.
Over the
summer, a Chicago-based nonprofit called the Campaign to End the Death Penalty
sent a survey to all 749 death row inmates in California. The survey asked them
to answer six questions about their feelings on the death penalty, Prop. 62,
and whether the challenge of Prop. 66 should affect how people vote on Prop.
62. All but one respondent expressed opposition to the death penalty,
yet more opposed Prop. 62 than supported it. Of the 46 inmates who had
responded as of last Friday, 22 opposed the measure, 17 supported it, and 7
took no position. (No one—including the respondent who supported the death
penalty—supported Prop. 66.)
Lilly Hughes,
director of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, said inmates' opposition to
Prop. 62 has to do with the way it's written. The Justice That Works Act—the
legislative title for Prop. 62—would make life without parole the maximum
sentence for murder and be retroactively applied to all inmates currently on
death row. "People feel that it's just a death
sentence with a different name," Hughes told me. Kenneth
Hartman—who has served 37 years of a life-without-parole sentence in California
State Prison in Los Angeles County—echoed that sentiment during a phone call.
Hartman heads the Other Death Penalty Project, an inmate-run nonprofit that
advocates against life-without-parole sentences and opposes Prop. 62.
"Fundamentally, we believe that life without parole is just another method
of execution," he told me. "You die in prison. It just takes a
longer, slower time to do it."
"Fundamentally, we believe that life without parole is just another method of execution. You die in prison. It just takes a longer, slower time to do it."
Many inmates
also do not want to give up the state-sponsored resources guaranteed them to
fight their convictions as long as they're facing execution, notes Kent
Scheidegger, legal director at the conservative Criminal Justice Legal
Foundation. Only inmates on death row are guaranteed an attorney for their
appeals—and a review of their trial process by a federal court that considers
factors like attorney incompetence, potential procedural errors, and racial
bias. Death row inmates are also granted more funding for their attorneys to
investigate their cases and retain expert witnesses. "If the inmates'
primary focus is getting the conviction overturned, then they are better off,
in a sense, being sentenced to death," Scheidegger says.
The Justice
That Works Act would also require all inmates serving life without parole for
murder to work and would raise the percentage of their earnings that must be
paid toward restitution for their victim's families from 50 to 60
percent. It would allow the state to continue taking money out of the funds
sent to them by their friends and family as well. Some survey respondents who
opposed the act said 60 percent was too high, that their families shouldn't
have to pay, or that they wanted to decide for themselves what to do with their
time in prison—including not work.
California
has more people on death row than any other state but hasn't
executed anyone since 2006, when the state Supreme Court ruled the state's
lethal injection method unconstitutional and instituted a moratorium on executions. Only 13 people have been executed
since 1978, when capital punishment was restored after the state Supreme Court
had ruled it unconstitutional in 1972. The state Supreme Court also currently
hears all death penalty appeals—a process that has often taken as long as 10 to
15 years—so many condemned inmates sit in prison for years on end without an
execution date. An analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office
argues that Prop. 62 would save California taxpayers $150 million annually
within a few years, partly because the state wouldn't have to keep paying for
death penalty legal proceedings.
"If the inmates' primary focus is getting the conviction overturned, then they are better off, in a sense, being sentenced to death."
Back in 2012,
the last time there was a ballot measure seeking to abolish the death penalty,
the Campaign to End the Death Penalty sent a similar survey to 100 death row
inmates in the state. The vast majority of the 35 respondents opposed the
measure, Hughes said, for reasons similar to those expressed this time around.
She thinks the amount of inmate support for Prop. 62 has to do with the fact
that, this time, there's also a competing measure that would put inmates on the
fast track to execution. Prop. 66 aims to shorten the death penalty appeals
process by assigning condemned inmates' initial challenges to their convictions
to state trial courts, creating a timetable for reviewing capital cases, and
requiring appointed attorneys to work on death penalty cases.
The Campaign
to End the Death Penalty does not have a public stance on Prop. 62 or Prop.
66. Officially, however, the campaign is opposed to both the death penalty
and to life without parole. The point of the survey, Hughes says, was not to
sway voters one way or another but to bring the voices of death row inmates into
the public debate. One respondent wanted
voters to know that "both [the] death penalty and life without [parole]
are cruel forms of punishment and life without may be worse." Another,
who supported Prop 62., wanted the public to remember
that innocent people have been executed. A third advised simply, "Vote
your conscience."
You can read
death row inmates' response to the survey here.
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