About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

46 Loy. L. A. L. Rev. 221 (2012-2013)
Costs of Capital Punishment in California: Will Voters Choose Reform This November

handle is hein.journals/lla46 and id is 235 raw text is: COSTS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN CALIFORNIA: WILL VOTERS CHOOSE REFORM THIS NOVEMBER? Judge Arthur L. Alarcon & Paula M. Mitchell* In November 2012, California voters took to the polls to consider Proposition 34, a ballot initiative to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP') as the state's most severe punishment. In advance of the election, Judge Arthur L. Alarc6n and Paula M. Mitchell released this Article, which the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review published on its website on September 10, 2012. In this Article, the authors updated voters on the findings presented in their groundbreaking 2011 study, which revealed that from 1978 to 2011, California's death-penalty system cost the state's taxpayers $4 billion more than a system that has LWOP as its most severe penalty. Here, the authors demonstrate that the decision to maintain the current system will cost Californians an additional $5 billion to $7 billion between now and 2050. In that time, roughly 740 more inmates will be added to death row, an additional fourteen executions will be carried out, and more than five hundred death-row inmates will die of old age or other causes before the state executes them. On November 6, 2012, Proposition 34 was defeated by a margin of 6,460,264 votes to 5,974,243. The Article is reproduced here as it originally appeared on the Law Review's website, although the pages have been renumbered and minor typographic corrections have been made. * Judge Arthur L. Alarc6n is a Senior Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Paula M. Mitchell is an adjunct professor of law at Loyola Law School Los Angeles, where she teaches Habeas Corpus and Civil Rights Litigation. They co-wrote Executing the Will of the Voters?: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature's Multi-Billion Dollar Death Penalty Debacle, 44 LOY. L.A. L. REV. S41 (2011), which was published in June 2011. 221

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most