Legislative Effort Against the Death Penalty Revived!

The Sac Bee reports:

Opponents of the state’s death penalty announced a new effort Monday aimed at getting an initiative before voters next year that would abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without parole.


The effort uses the enormous costs of California’s death penalty as a sales point with voters, and organizers said this morning that roughly $4 billion has been spent since 1978 to execute only 13 inmates.

Usually, one would predict that such an initiative had better odds at the legislature than among the public, who has consistently supported the death penalty, and given its failure earlier this week, odds would look rather grim. But with the budget crisis what it is, the public is less likely to be held hostage by victim groups. We will be following this up closely.