PROPOSITION 62. Death Penalty. Initiative Statute YES

Every mainline Protestant denomination, Catholics, and many other faiths oppose the death penalty.  The use of capital punishment is sometimes justified Biblically – “an eye for an eye” – but the greater premise of faith is “restorative justice” that seeks healing and wholeness, not  state sponsored violence and vengeance.  Two factors come into our deliberation. First, the death penalty falls heavily on people of color while white people convicted of the same crime escape. Second, since 1973 Death Penalty Information Center states that 156 people have been found conclusively innocent. At least two people in other states recently executed left evidence that now shows overwhelmingly that they were innocent.  That is blood on society’s hands. Moreover, the victims’ friends and families have no absolute assurance that the real perpetrator is not walking free.  There can be no justice and no healing when this remains a powerful possibility. Therefore the appeals process must take time to make sure that those sentenced for capital crimes get every available opportunity to contest their sentencing.    The monetary costs to society are enormous.  It has cost California $5 billion to execute 13 people since 1978. The emotional costs to survivors is worse since at every turn they need to appear to state their objection to release.
Proposition 62 will change all death sentences, for those already on death row and any new capital cases, into life sentences without the possibility of parole. The perpetrators will never walk the streets again. This is a life sentence, period.  Save for exculpatory appeals, the costs of reconsideration will be reduced. This is restorative justice at work.  Life without the possibility of parole ends all of our costs and moral uncertainties.  It is the essential step to a criminal system that works for everyone.   

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