Is a Moratorium for California in the Future?
Read this article from the San Francisco Chronicle.
SACRAMENTO Moratorium sought on death penalty Assembly Dems say innocent person may be executed
Sacramento -- A group of Assembly Democrats announced on Tuesday a coming effort to place a moratorium on capital punishment, declaring California is at grave risk of taking the life of an innocent person, unless the state pauses to scrutinize possible flaws in the justice system.Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood (Los Angeles County), said he would introduce a bill next year to halt executions until January 2009 -- about a year after a report is due from an expert panel established by the state Senate to scrutinize how capital punishment is applied.
Citing a number of overturned convictions, several of them death-penalty cases, Koretz said California stands "at grave risk of executing an innocent person" unless it first examines a range of issues associated with the death penalty. The debate over capital punishment has in recent years been infused with accusations of uneven implementation and has been stoked by DNA evidence testing, which has exonerated several convicts in various types of cases.
Posted by beth at 10:41 AM
