SanJoseMercTimes

Proposition 34, which would abolish the death penalty in California, was trailing in early voting Tuesday, but many results were not yet available from key battlegrounds such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Alameda County.

The measure was down by about a 56 percent to 44 percent margin as the first votes were counted. Proposition 34 marks the first opportunity in more than three decades for California voters to decide whether to retain the death penalty, which has been scrapped by a number of other states in recent years.

"I'm not surprised we're down in early voting," said Natasha Minsker, Proposition 34's campaign manager. "They will get higher as the night goes on."

The measure would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole and convert the death sentences of California's 727 death row inmates to life. If approved, it would reverberate through the national debate over the death penalty while immediately removing nearly a quarter of the more than 3,100 death row inmates now awaiting execution across the country.

Backers of the measure focused their arguments on the cost of California's notoriously slow capital punishment system, saying it would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year at a time when the state is facing a budget crunch.

The Proposition 34 campaign enlisted a roster of the rich and famous to bankroll the effort, gathering more than $7 million to far outspend the

opposition.

 

But law enforcement officials, victims' rights groups and three of California's former governors aligned against the measure, arguing that the death penalty should be preserved for the state's most heinous killers. They refuted the potential cost savings, saying the estimates were inflated and that the ponderous death penalty system should be repaired, not replaced.

California has executed just 13 inmates since restoring the death penalty in 1978, the result of an appeals process that takes decades and often results in death sentences being overturned long after a murderer is sent to San Quentin. Just last month, a federal appeals court overturned the 1978 death sentence of condemned killer Douglas Stankewitz, the state's longest serving death row inmate.

Executions have been on hold for nearly seven years in California, the result of ongoing legal challenges to the state's lethal injection method. If Proposition 34 fails, those court battles will continue to unfold, likely ensuring another year or more of delays before the state can realistically resume executions.

However, while the legal battles have unfolded, at least 13 death row inmates have exhausted all of their legal appeals, raising the prospect that California will experience an unprecedented spate of executions if Proposition 34 is rejected and further legal roadblocks are removed.

Californians have historically demonstrated strong public support for the death penalty, adopting the 1978 law with more than 70 percent of the vote. But support has been eroding in recent years, prompting death penalty foes to make a move to abolish a system that both current Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and former Chief Justice Ronald George have called "dysfunctional."

Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris took no public position on Proposition 34, but Brown revealed that he voted for the measure after filling in his ballot in Oakland on Tuesday. Unlike other states where legislators have repealed the death penalty, only California voters can abolish the death penalty here because it's in the state constitution.