Death sentences, as practiced in states that do not use the death penalty in a timely manner, reject incapacitation and rehabilitation as a justification for the death penalty. According to the logic leading to the death penalty, which is that the prisoner cannot be rehabilitated and deserves death, the prisoner should not be kept alive as he should not continue and denounce his dangerous behavior. Rehabilitation is not a coherent justification for punishment in the context of the death penalty. By sentencing a person to death, the jury implicitly assumes and affirms that that person is beyond rehabilitation and must be rendered totally incapable of criminal activity by the death penalty. For this reason, a punishment that assumes that the individual may be able to change his or her behavior is inappropriate. Total incapacity for work justified by the impossibility of rehabilitation may justify the imposition of the death penalty if it is carried out quickly and renders the person completely incapacitated. However, such inability must not occur in practice.
In states that do not execute people on death row, either by practice or by moratorium, criminal behavior can continue because jury judgment is not enforced by the state. People on death row in states like California, where executions are rarely or never carried out, are not incapacitated. Most people on death row in California die on death row rather than with an actual death sentence. People on death row are therefore slightly more incapacitated by a death sentence than by LWOP. Thus, long delays in passing the death penalty contradict the values of the jury’s decision to impose the death penalty, whether or not incarcerated individuals have the opportunity for rehabilitation and reform. The only aspect of a death sentence in these states that actually disenfranchises the incarcerated person is the requirement that those persons live on death row. Life on death row separates inmates to a far more extreme degree than the general prison population. People are being removed not only from society but also from the prison population in general. Nonetheless, there remains a risk to guards and others on death row that cannot be justified when states never execute these people.
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State Senate, District 15 (Campbell)
Summary
En In 2016, California voters were asked whether they were for or against the death penalty. Proposition 62 was formally put on the November vote. If passed, the referendum would have abolished the death penalty in the state of California. The move eventually failed. 52 percent of California voters rejected the referendum. As a result, the death penalty remained a possible punishment for certain crimes in California.
Proposition 62 supporters had several reasons for abolishing the death penalty in California. The main arguments of the abolitionist advocates were: