SPEED UP DEATH PENALTY CASES? NOT SO FAST, CALIF. HIGH COURT RULES

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East County News Service

December 20, 2016 (San Francisco) — California’s Supreme Court has temporarily blocked implementation of Proposition 66, a measure approved by voters in November that would speed up death penalty cases.  The high court issued the stay to allow time to hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by opponents of the measure.

The lawsuit contends that Prop 66 would suppress legitimate legal challenges, hinder attorneys’ ability to represent their clients on Death Row, and increase expenditures of public funds.  Thecase was filed by former California Attorney General John Van De Kamp and attorney Ron Briggs.

California has nearly 750 prisoners on Death Row, but no one has been executed in the state since 2006, when a federal judge halted the state’s lethal injection process as a potential violation of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the U.S. constitution.  A replacement is pending approval by the state Office of Administration Law.


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