Death Penalty Bill Will Not Go Forward

SB490, the proposition to abolish the death penalty in CA, will not move forward. The Chronicle reports:

A bill that would have let California voters decide whether to repeal the death penalty will not move forward because of a lack of support in the Legislature, the measure’s author announced Thursday.


SB490 by Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, was introduced in June following the release of a study that found the state is paying $184 million more a year to keep people on death row than it would if inmates were simply left in prison for life.

But look at the statement from Hancock:

“The votes were not there to support reforming California’s expensive and dysfunctional death penalty system,” Hancock said in a written statement Thursday. “I had hoped we would take the opportunity to save hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to support our schools and universities, keep police on our streets and fund essential public institutions like the courts. Study after study has demonstrated that the cost of maintaining the death penalty when so many basic needs are going unmet has become an expense we can no longer afford.”

If this is not humonetarianism, I don’t know what is.

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Props to David Takacs for alerting me to this.