California Residents: How do you feel about our Governor suspending the death penalty after we voted yes for it?

I'm fine with it because I voted against the death penalty.

The death penalty is wrong

I'm against it because:

it does not act as a deterrent,

it is costly, much more than life in prison,

it is not applied fairly,

the criminal justice system that administers it is extremely imperfect,

over the past decade, nearly 150 death row inmates have been exonerated,

it is illogical for the state to teach citizens not to kill by killing.

See

http://www.nesca.org/wx/201412/a_An_Interesting_In...

http://www.nesca.org/wx/201412/a_Why_would_death_r...

You wanted a death penalty and you got one. It's not up to you whether it gets used or not.

Sure

The governor has that authority and voters in California elected him governor. Newsom's opposition to the death penalty was well known before the election. Voters chose him anyway.

I'm not from California, but the death penalty is stupid. The research at best shows a mild deterrent effect, and the evidence on that is mixed and depends on cherry-picking which studies you pay attention to. Whereas the deterrent effect that is overwhelming is the "likelyhood of being caught". More police = less crime. More effective police = less crime. A clean, well lit environment that gives the impression that criminals will be caught = less crime.

Further, the death penalty is MUCH more expensive than life in prison. And that's before accounting for the mistakes. Many dozens of people have been exonerated off death row, largely because of scientific advances that happened while they were on death row. Some have been mere DAYS from being put to death before being exonerated. Our justice system is pretty good, but it makes ALOT of mistakes, and has ALOT of bad features that encourage those mistakes. If someone is in prison instead of dead, we can at least give them PART of their life back.

So not knowing the details of your situation, yeah, maybe that seems undemocratic. I'm not aware of the legal situation there. I'll let you hash that out yourselves.

But it is the right policy.

Remove him from office.

And believe it or not he wants to run for President in 2014.

We need to focus on rehabilitation not incarceration.