SHOULD WE END THE DEATH PENALTY?

On  November 6th, 2012,  California voters will be presented with Proposition 34, which would end the state’s death penalty and instead require mandatory life sentences, without parole, for condemned inmates.
Specifically, Proposition 34 will:

• Repeal the death penalty as maximum punishment for persons found guilty of murder and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
• Apply retroactively to persons already sentenced to death. (725)
• Require persons found guilty of murder to work while in prison, with their wages to be applied to any victim restitution fines or orders against them.
• Create a $100 million fund to be distributed to law enforcement agencies to help solve more homicide and rape cases.

I have a friend who is dead set against this bill. He espouses the idea that death by injection as cruel and unusual punishment is “bull”. And, I agree. However, the people required to kill 725 people are civil servants who work for the system. The find it difficult to participate in killing another human being. Physicians find it difficult to administer death to a healthy person. Life in prison is by some estimates a harsher punishment than death. Over the years, I was  a supporter of the death penalty. The recent spate of people released from prison, and death row, across the country, found innocent of their crimes after yeas in prison, made me change my mind. Most of them were exonerated by DNA testing. The expense of the death penalty alone gives me pause. It costs more to follow the “safeguards” with appeals and extra legal maneuvering before a man is executed, a process that often takes years, than it is to keep him for life.  I think voters should approve Prop. 34, for all the reasons below:
The death penalty doesn’t work. It has been proven that it does not deter heinous crime, especially in the drug crazed world we now live in.
A crime carrying the death penalty isn’t qualified equally in communities around the state. It depends on a seated judge’s interpretation.  Juries are harder to seat when they are faced with the power to condemn a person to death which greatly adds to the cost of trials subject to the death penalty.
Proponents have spent years trying to speed up executions, including creating a Habeas Corpus Resource Center in 1998. And yet,  California has only executed 13 condemned murderers since 1992. More condemned men have died while waiting on death row than have been executed.
Supporters say California could institute laws for speedy executions as they do in Texas. But we’d do so risking the same kind of legal errors and unequal application that has tarnished Texas’ judicial system. Killing innocent people, does not go down well, nor should it happen.
Ending the death penalty would save California courts $50 million annually for appellate litigation according to Legislative Annalists.  My friend claims that is because attorneys  pad their fees and take advantage of the governments deep pockets. If that is true, more the reason to do without the death penalty. There is no doubt that money would be saved because in all respects, death penalty cases are much more expensive to put to trial.
And, in California, looming is an expensive upgrade to the death row at San Quentin.
Altogether, ending the death penalty would save California about $100 million in the first few years, and about $130 million in subsequent years, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Under Proposition 34, the same prisoners  would be given jobs in prison, unless they posed too great a risk to be with the general population. Like other murderers, these inmates would have their pay deducted for any debts they owe to victims of crime.
Supporters of the death penalty say it is an affront to the families of victims to see these murderer’s live while their loved one died by those same hands. But how long must they wait when the system is not working? And, what guilt would they feel if the convicted man were executed and another inmate confessed to that crime sometime down the line, which has happened? Or, if DNA evidence proved him innocent after the execution?
How can we as humans, claim we abhor violence and then engage in it?
Manson, a heinous killer, is still in prison and routinely comes before a parole board and repeatedly, and endlessly (he complains) will be turned down. Prop. 34 would do away with those expensive hearings that come up every so many years, and the attorneys who represent them in these hearings. There are monsters in society and living with no hope of parole can allow the prisoner to accept his situation and engage in work that provides some small restitution to victims. It is simply more humane.
The Sacramento Bee made this point: If California were to implement life sentences with no possibility of parole, high-profile murderers such as Ramirez and Rhoades would no longer get the attention they crave and often receive on San Quentin’s death row.They’d live out their lonely days behind bars and die in relative obscurity. That would be a just end, and one that we all could count on.
I would add to that. No murderer should be allowed to make money on the sensationalism of his crime by publishing a book. He can write it, but he cannot publish it.

REFUSE TO KILL

Everywhere at Thunderbird Monroe, is the sound of water. It trickles and gargles its way to the great Snohomish at our backs, forming shady glens, and gravelled pools. Comfortable respite-in hot weather.

Rhododendrons bloom everywhere in various shades of red and lavender.  On the road,  hybrid peach and yellow rhodies bloom in yards  along the way. I have just one more day to enjoy them and the swimming pool before leaving for Southern California on Monday.
We went to town looking for a bean bag to stabilize the rear view camera mount.  Second hand stores are always fun. At Cinderella's Closet I found this sign:  I laughed while Jim pretended he didn't know what it meant.  We didn't find a bean bag, but we happened upon My LA Fashion Store, a place that specialized in designer jeans. Cindy retired from Los Angeles at 44, moved to Monroe, got bored and opened up this store. Neither of us had ever seen mannequins that emphasized the derriere before.

There was a whole line-up of them on the street.

Actually, our real goal in town was to meet Jim's lifelong friend, Al Penta and meet his girl friend, Kim. These guys, always cutting up, made Kim appear eight feet tall.

Al and Jim were both in the Navy during Viet Nam, and Al came home an avid pacifist.  He met Kim about three years ago. Both are vegetarians and like me, anti-war, peaceniks.

Al and Jim, both bachelors for many years, get together and meet for lunch  when Jim passes through Monroe. Al claimed, having lunch with a couple of women included, made their traditional, yearly lunch more fun. It was no surprise to me that women are more fun.
If you are interested in Peace Organizations, there are over 100 of them listed at this address. My favorite, Give Peace A Chance wasn't listed. Others, you can find:  Refuse To Kill, Muslims Peace Fellowship, Westpoint Graduates For Peace, Grandmothers for Peace, Physicians For Social Responsibility...anyway, give it a look: http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/peacewebsite/scpcWebsite/Documents/ResourcesPeaceOrgs.htm

WEST COAST WAR

I volunteer for the Alameda County Sheriff's Archive, and when I arrived at Santa Rita on Thursday, I found the book The West Coast Goes To War by Don De Nevi. It was donated by Jay Friberg.
Deputy Marc Lakner , retired, was present, and he donated a piece from the Berlin Wall that was given to him by a relative who was once stationed at Checkpoint Charlie.
The Sheriff's Office has been described as a "semi military organization." Veterans are given five preferential points on exams to enter and promote through the ranks. Many veterans serve in the department, only now they are Viet Nam or Iraqi vets. Since we haven't had a war on American soil since the Civil War, I was surprised at the title of this book until I opened the pages and realized it was an apt title. Not the killing, bombing and bullets we see visited upon civilian populations that all war brings in the occupation, but a war even so, in stark contrast to today's conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Civilians volunteered to man watch towers to spot airplanes all over the Bay Area. Signage like those above were made, paid for and erected by civilians.
My husband lamented the taking of the Japanese as he watched half his friends from his high school basketball team be deported to concentration camps. It was personal ugliness. The evacuations were handled by the Sheriff's Department in Alameda County. I interviewed one Deputy, now deceased, who was part of that. The record is in our archive.
The Japanese family above were required to report to the Sheriff's Department and every car carrying a Japanese person was stopped and searched when traveling over the Bay Area Bridges.
People bought bonds to support the war; canteens were organized for soldiers returning or leaving. Dances were held for them. Women went to city hall and wrapped bandages for the war effort. They had victory gardens and rationing of sugar, gas, and other needed war materials. There were blackouts and curfews and radio silence to be obeyed and enforced by Sheriff's deputies. They covered the patrol cars headlamps with a black cloth that barely allowed them to see the road they were driving on. Production jobs, making bullets, ship building and so on were taken over by women. Many were married women who did it for the cause, and then returned to family duties after the war. (An interesting black note here, only white women were provided with child care while working the war industry. Women of color had to arrange their own child care.)
An escape route was built across the mountain tops of California in the event of bombings and there were various skirmishes in American territory, (subs, air breeches, one firing on a West Coast fort, and an altercation in Alaska)
For all of its support, let us never forget, war is about killing people.