The UN-SAFE Act

Polly’s killer has been on death row since 1996. This November, California voters will be asked to overturn his sentence and the death sentences of 723 other serial killers, baby killers, cop killers and mass murderers. A proposition called the Savings, Accountability, Full Enforcement (SAFE) Act, which will appear on California’s ballot, will retroactively outlaw the death penalty in favor life without the possibility of parole. Abolitionists, led by the ACLU, claim that we should abolish the death penalty because it’s broken. They use the administrative bottlenecks that they created as justification for eliminating the death penalty. Now they believe that voters will be fooled into approving an initiative that will reward evil scum under the guise of alleged cost saving.   

If the death penalty is broken, mend it, don’t end it. Adopt a single drug for executions. Several other states, including Ohio, Washington, and Arizona use a constitutionally valid single drug for executions. Since 2009, Ohio has conducted 14 executions using a single drug method. Executions in California have been delayed because death penalty opponents endlessly file appeals, claiming the current 3-drug method is unconstitutional because it may be “cruel and unusual.” The final ten minutes of a remorseless killer’s life are not legitimate grounds to delay the death penalty.

Several legislative and constitutional efforts can be adopted to fix the appeals process. Retired California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron George endorsed a Constitutional Amendment to allow Appeals Courts to hear appeals thereby significantly reducing costs and delays. Modify and limit the time for filing certain types of appeals. Require defense attorneys to take appeals and thereby reduce delays. Currently, California has more than 171,000 practicing attorneys, yet only about 100 are qualified to represent automatic appeals.

Unfortunately, elected officials who advocate on behalf of death row inmates never allow those efforts to see the light of day. On April 17 I testified before the Senate Public Safety Committee on two bills that would have streamlined the process. Senate Bill 1514 would have eliminated the automatic appeal in cases, like Polly’s, where guilt was never in doubt. It was defeated by a straight party vote. Senate Constitutional Amendment 20 (SCA 20) would have amended the California Constitution so that appeals of death penalty cases would go to the California Court of Appeals instead of the California Supreme Court. The 105 Appeals Court justices would be able to rule on many more death penalty appeals than the 7 Supreme Court justices thereby greatly easing the backlog. SCA 20 was defeated because it would cost too much.

Politicians who would tax our inner organs in an effort to save a population of salamanders become fiscal conservatives when it comes to the death penalty. There is no objective data that elimination of the death penalty will save money. The studies relied on by death penalty opponents are misleading and inflated and were either written by them or rely on data collected by them. The only unbiased study to determine the true costs was done by the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan organization which operates independent of political pressures. The RAND Corporation found there was no objective data available to give a true estimate of the costs of the death penalty.

The death penalty is a law that is supported by a majority of Californians. The law of the land and the will of the people have been subverted by administrative shenanigans, frivolous appeals, endless delays and moral bankruptcy. The very individuals and organizations who have created a broken system in California now want the voters to legitimize their misanthropic actions. California’s so called SAFE Act mocks our system of crime and punishment as it attempts to give our very worst criminals the very thing that they denied their victims: to right to live their lives in safety and die in peace.