Official Summary
Changes procedures governing state court challenges to death sentences. Designates superior court for initial petitions and limits successive petitions. Requires appointed attorneys who take noncapital appeals to accept death penalty appeals. Exempts prison officials from existing regulation process for developing execution methods.
Fiscal Impact: Unknown ongoing impact on state court costs for processing legal challenges to death sentences. Potential prison savings in the tens of millions of dollars annually.
- Official CA Voter Guide Summary
- Legislative Analyst Office Analysis
- Show Me The Money (as of Oct 22)
- support: $12,500,000
- oppose: $10,280,000
- Ballotpedia Summary
Notes
- establishes time frame for state court death penalty review
- total of 5 years max instead of current system when it could take decades
- under current law, death penalty verdicts are immediately appealed ("direct appeal") to California Supreme Court, then they can ask the US Supreme Court to review the case
- many cases also involve Habeas Corpus appeals, in the California Supreme Court and the federal courts
- Habeas Corpus petitions - new
- must be first heard in trial courts by the judge that handeled the original trial, instead of California Supreme Court (within 1 year of original verdict). Next step would be the Court of Appeals (must file within 30 days of trial court appeal verdict), then California Supreme Court
- must be filed within 1 year of attorney appointment, currently about 5 years
- limits to one petition
- Habeas Corpus Resource Center board dissolved, Center put under California Supreme Court, and its attorneys shall be paid the same as public defenders
- Califonia Supreme Court appoints attorneys for inmates that cannot afford them; currently 409 are waiting to get attorneys appointed
- authorizes death row inmate transfers among California prisons
- increases portion of condemned inmates' wages that may be applied to victim restitution (from 50% wages to 70%, including wages and trust account deposits)
- exempts the state's execution procedures from the Administrative Procedures Act, trial court would offer valid method of execution (lethal gas or lethal injection)
- states that other death penalty measures are void if this one receives more votes
- Related: Proposition 62 abolishes the Death Penalty in California , but if this gets more votes, the death penalty stays put