Recent Death Penalty News
REX KREBS' LIFE ON DEATH ROW AT SAN QUENTIN PRISON, by Patrick S. Pemberton, SanLuisObispo.com, 4/22/09
In the summer of 2001, a sheriff’s deputy dropped Rex Krebs off at San Quentin State Prison with a sardonic message.
“Hey, Rex,” he said just before leaving. “Have a nice day.”
The statement was ironic in a couple of ways: A fleeing Krebs had said the same thing to a woman he’d just raped in 1987. Also, San Quentin is home to California’s Death Row.
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THE COLLOSSEO SHINES FOR NEW MEXICO, By Elizabeth Zitrin, DPF Blog 4/15/09
Whoever was in charge of the weather today in Rome did a great job. It could not have been more perfect – a perfect day for a conservative Western American state to feel the embrace of the civilized world. Now that's what I'm talking about! The America I believe in does not torture or execute people, and we are working together to restore America to a position of pride and admiration in the world. Today, in Rome, Americans were admired. We can get used to it.
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A BUDGET SOLUTION: SELL OFF SAN QUENTIN, By William F. Shughart II, 3/31/09
California's budgetary headaches finally have gotten painful enough that some state legislators want to sell Death Row. That's a killer idea.
San Quentin State Prison, which houses more than 5,300 inmates, including 635 of the 675 people awaiting death sentences in California, sits on a 435-acre peninsula overlooking San Francisco Bay in Marin County. Offering a prime location and breathtaking scenery, officials think that, even in a down market, the prison's buildings and grounds would fetch as much as $2 billion from private developers.
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AG BROWN SAYS HE'LL FOLLOW LAW ON DEATH PENALTY, By Don Thompson, San Jose Mercury News, 03/11/2009
SACRAMENTO—Attorney General Jerry Brown said Wednesday he understands that California's support for the death penalty is now "part of the landscape," even though he opposed executions when he was governor a generation ago. Brown vetoed the death penalty bill while he was governor from 1974 to 1982, but was overridden by the Legislature at the time. He also appointed state Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird, who was removed by voters in 1986 for her anti-death penalty rulings.
But the issue has long since been decided, he told reporters after addressing the California Law Enforcement Alliance's 17th annual Law Enforcement Legislative Day conference in Sacramento.
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DEATH PENALTY: A DA'S DECISION, Thadeus Greenson, The Times-Standard, March 1,2009
When it comes to the death penalty in the state of California, there just isn't much consistency. ”It's like a patchwork quilt,” said Elisabeth Semel, a clinical professor of law at U.C. Berkeley who directs the school's death penalty clinic. “Someone once said, 'California has 58 counties and 58 death penalties,' and that's a very apt statement.”
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S.F. GRAPPLES WITH FIRST DEATH TRIALS IN YEARS, By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, 3/1/09
For the first time since 1948, lives are at stake in a San Francisco federal courtroom.
Two alleged gang members went on trial before separate juries last week, each accused of three murders as part of a racketeering enterprise to control local drug trafficking. The Justice Department is seeking the death penalty for both defendants, in one case over the objections of the U.S. attorney's office, which had agreed on a 40-year prison sentence.
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WE CAN'T AFFORD THE DEATH PENALTY, New America Media, Commentary, Lance Lindsey, March 4, 2009
From California to New York, dozens of newspapers are declaring that state governments can no longer afford the death penalty.
The Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., recently reported that the death penalty is too costly. Maryland spent $37 million per execution in the past 28 years. In Florida, home to the second largest death row in the country, the cost estimates are $24 million per execution. California’s cost is $250 million per execution, according to a Los Angeles Times article cited in the report. These states are among 36 states that have the death penalty and, like nearly every state, are going through a financial crisis.
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3 YEARS LATER, STATE EXECUTIONS STILL ON HOLD
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, 2/22/09
San Quentin State Prison -- It's been three years since the night a federal judge blocked an execution at San Quentin State Prison because of concerns that the state's haphazard lethal injection methods could inflict prolonged and excruciating pain on a condemned inmate, violating the U.S. Constitution.
Today, the state is no closer to executing the Stockton murderer-rapist who was to have died that night, Michael Morales, or any of the other 679 prisoners on the nation's largest death row. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration says it's trying to break the logjam by agreeing to let the public comment on proposed new procedures for executing convicts, a concession that it opposed in court for more than two years.
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RIVERSIDE COUNTY DA OFFERS INSIGHT INTO DEATH PENALTY DECISIONS
By Tammy J. McCoy, The Press-Enterprise, 2/20.09
At times the decision to seek the death penalty or life in prison is clear immediately. Other times, Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco has taken a month to come to a decision. Pacheco has sought the death penalty in more than 30 cases during the last two years as district attorney for Riverside County. As a trial prosecutor earlier in his career, he persuaded five juries to impose death sentences. Pacheco discussed how he goes about deciding if a defendant should face life in a prison cell or join the population of California's death row.
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