By Miriam Raftery

May 4, 2013 (Sacramento) – The State Senate Public Safety on Thursday voted 5-2  to defeat SB 779, a measure authored by Senator Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) and sponsored by the California District Attorneys Association.  The bill sought to speed up executions in California through several means, including bringing back the gas chamber. The bill sparked strong outcry from human rights activists who denounced the method as inhumane.

California voters narrowly defeated a bill in November that would have outlawed the death penalty.  The punishment remains on the books, but due to two judicial rulings finding prior methods inhumane, the state has been left unable to carry out executions  since 2006, despite death penalty verdicts.