Gov. Newsom Suspends The Death Penalty in California..

wow - such huge news and such a great day for those who value human life.

Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign a sweeping order on Wednesday putting an executive moratorium on California's troubled death penalty, thus ordering a reprieve for the 737 people on death row.

The action suspends any further executions in California as long as Newsom is governor, his office said.  

Well done, Governor.

Caution: Mainstream Media Link

I don't really keep up with such things, but I would have bet money that California had already done away with the death penalty.

Cameron wrote:I don't really keep up with such things, but I would have bet money that California had already done away with the death penalty.

it can only be abolished by vote (at least in California) - there was a referendum just a couple of years ago where the pro-death penalty (that's a weird thing to type) advocates triumphed in a very narrow vote.

In a shock to nobody, the racist, bigoted christian sexual predator denounced California's moratorium on killing people.

Oh - and he's "pro-life"....

There are two very simple reasons to be against the death penalty without having to get religious or political:

1. It's cheaper to keep them in jail for life.
A. The Innocence Project.

Heat Miser wrote:There are two very simple reasons to be against the death penalty without having to get religious or political:

1. It's cheaper to keep them in jail for life.
A. The Innocence Project.

I get your second point listed, and that alone should be enough. If 95% of all inmates on death row are guilty, we should immediately stop the death penalty until we have a figure that says 100% of all inmantes on death row are guilty. Then we should still debate this.

But your first oint, that surprises me. Is it really cheaper to keep them alive? I didn't know that.

DWags wrote:

Heat Miser wrote:There are two very simple reasons to be against the death penalty without having to get religious or political:

1. It's cheaper to keep them in jail for life.
A. The Innocence Project.

I get your second point listed, and that alone should be enough.   If 95% of all inmates on death row are guilty, we should immediately stop the death penalty until we have a figure that says 100% of all inmantes on death row are guilty.  Then we should still debate this.  

But your first oint, that surprises me. Is it really cheaper to keep them alive?   I didn't know that.

I've always read/heard that - I suspect there is some truth to it when you think of the actual cost of housing/feeding an inmate versus decades of court appeals, etc - while still paying the cost of housing/feeding the inmate.

my biggest problem with the death penalty is how it penalizes the most vulnerable among us and the ripple effect is felt for generations. It is overwhelmingly racist and disaffects the population from a socioeconomic standpoint to a significant degree.

quick - name a wealthy person on death row.

and, finally, we can't pretend to be a country that values human life when our very government executes its citizens based on the properties of a systemic problem that (I believe) deliberately disenfranchises the most socially, culturally and economically endangered people among us.