CA, let's outlaw the death penalty and join these nations. Say Yes to Prop 34! [View all]

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This handy map from Wikimedia Commons shows how the world divides between countries with the death penalty (red), countries without (blue), countries that employ it only under rare "special circumstances" (green), and countries that legally retain the death penalty but have not used it in at least 10 years (orange).



Map: Which Countries Use the Death Penalty?

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/map-which-countries-use-the-death-penalty/241490/

California Proposition 34, the End the Death Penalty Initiative (2012)

Proposition 34

Proposition 34, titled by election officials as "Death Penalty. Initiative Statute", is on the November 6, 2012 ballot in California as an initiated state statute.[1] If the state's voters approve it, Proposition 34 will eliminate the death penalty in California and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole.[2]

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.

- 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.

California has 725 people on death row.[3]

If the Prop. 34 is approved, their sentences will be replaced with "life in prison without the possibility of parole".[3] These prisoners will also be required to seek jobs within the prison system, and their earnings will go to crime victims.[4]

Seven of the 725 people currently on death row have exhausted all appeals and are therefore eligible for execution, although legal challenges to California's lethal injection procedure must be resolved before any of them could be executed.[2]

The last time a prisoner was put to death in California was in 2006. At that time, a federal judge halted executions in the state until various changes were made in how the state administers the death penalty.[3]

California is one of 33 states that currently authorize the death penalty.[4]

The death penalty in California was judicially invalidated in the 1970s and was then reinstated via Proposition 7 in 1978. 13 inmates have been executed since then.[3]

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Proposition_34,_the_End_the_Death_Penalty_Initiative_(2012)