Is this the end of the death penalty in California? Let the veepstakes begin! California’s prison system has a big plan to cut costs. Significant increase in birth defects of IVF babies. California bill could outlaw sex conversion therapy. Plus, the latest news.
Is this the end of the death penalty in California?
A ballot measure that would abolish the death penalty in California qualified for the November ballot on Monday. If voters pass the measure more than 700 death row inmates would have their sentences automatically commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Public Policy Institute of California conducted a poll in September 2011, which found that 54 percent of Californian’s favored life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, compared to 39 percent who favored the death penalty and 7 percent who were undecided. Those numbers get much closer when you take into account people who will be voting in an upcoming election.
“When we get to likely voters, it tightens up. 50 percent of likely voters said they favored life imprisonment with absolutely no possibility of parole, 45 percent said they favored the death penalty and 6 percent were undecided,” explained Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California. “This points to the fact that there are not only differences between older and younger voters, and by age and income, but between whites and nonwhites.”
California isn’t the only state that’s veering away from capital punishment. Connecticut’s governor is set to sign a repeal of their death penalty legislation in the coming weeks and Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York have all voted to end the death penalty in the last six years. California could become the 18th state to repeal and part of a growing trend of anti-death penalty sentiment in the country.
Dan Schnur, Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and adjunct faculty at USC Annenberg School says this renewed energy around this issue is different than in the past because the focus has shifted to the overwhelming cost of implementing the death penalty. “I think this is what will drive the discussion in California more than anything else, is again not so much the morality of the death penalty, but rather the cost,” said Schnur. “If you look at the proponents, the sponsors of this initiative, one of the things they've been stressing from the beginning, unlike previous death penalty movements, is not whether the death penalty is right or wrong, but how expensive it is for a state that already has so many other expenses.”
Why does the death penalty cost so much? Experts point to legal fees and the fact that the state assigns adept defense lawyers to capital cases. These attorneys do everything in their power to keep their clients off death row.
“The numbers are tremendous for a very simple reason, lawyers are more expensive than prison guards, even in California,” said University of California, Berkeley Law Professor Frank Zimring. “If you take the 13 people California has executed and the $4 billion that the system has cost since 1978… that's $317 million an execution. If you spread the system costs more evenly you can get down to $60 or $70 or $100 million an execution, but the statistics on cost remain overwhelming even when you go to states with much more executions.”
Weigh In:
With support that high, will Californians vote to abolish in November? Where do you fall on the death penalty debate?
GUESTS
Dan Schnur, Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and adjunct faculty at USC Annenberg School
Mark Baldassare, President and Chief Executive Officer, Public Policy Institute of California
Frank Zimring, Professor of Law, Berkeley Law, University of California
Let the veepstakes begin!
The last time a republican contender for president picked a running mate it turned out to be one of the biggest stories of the election cycle. The Sarah Palin phenomenon is probably one that Mitt Romney is loath to repeat this time around, so who is on his list and what is he looking for in a vice-president?
Pundits are throwing around names like Rob Portman, a senator from Ohio who helped Romney bring home a win in that state’s primary and Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who many had hoped would throw his hat in the ring from the Republican presidential nomination. Young guns like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio are being considered. Romney took Rubio on the road this week, possibly to test out the young Florida Senator’s running-mate chops. Heavy hitters like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie are also in play, along with former rival Rick Santorum.
So, who’s the smart money on? What do each of the possible veep picks bring to the table? And post-Palin, does the running mate mean more than it used to?
GUESTS
Mark Barabak, political correspondent for the Los Angeles Times
Jonathan Wilcox, Republican Strategist and former speech writer for Gov Pete Wilson
California’s prison system has a big plan to cut costs
Every state agency has felt California’s budget crunch, and on Monday state prison officials announced a multi-faceted plan that would significantly reduce the budget for California’s crowded prisons. The plan aims to cut costs by reducing overcrowding and ending what prison officials perceive to be intrusive federal oversight of inmate medical and mental health care.
Part of the proposal hinges on realignment ordered by Governor Jerry Brown, which mandates that California’s prisons focus primarily on the most violent and dangerous offenders and transfer lower level offenders to county jails. Relocating minor offenders allows the prison system to eliminate $4.1 billion in construction projects and save an additional $318 million a year by bringing back by 2016 about 9,500 inmates who are currently serving California sentences in private prisons in other states.
"It's a massive change to our system," said Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate at Monday’s press conference. In total, the prison overhaul would save the state $1.5 billion a year and reduce the prison system’s percentage of the state budget from 11 percent to 7.5 percent.
According to Cate, preliminary reports on realignment have been positive, and the cost-cutting plan is the quickest way to solve prison overcrowding.
"We have 22,000 fewer inmates in our prisons from when we began realignment, so we have to act now. We don't have time to wait. The other thing is, the news from the counties have been very encouraging. Most of the counties have reported that they are seeing good public safety results, as the county has been funded, and sheriffs are ramping up and probation departments ... they're doing a great job," he said.
The bad news? State prison officials also announced that they will not meet a planned deadline to reduce the inmate population by 40,000 inmates by the June 2013 deadline. Cate said they'll surpass the benchmark number by 3,000 inmates.
"That's when we'd like to go to the court and hopefully at that point demonstrate we're providing constitutional care at this level, and we would like you to raise the levels that you allow us to keep in the prisons just very slightly," he said Tuesday.
Rebekah Evensen, senior staff attorney on Counsel on Brown v. Plata, the case that resulted in the Supreme Court’s prison crowding reduction order, said it makes sense to continue decreasing the level of crowding, but she thinks the state isn't going far enough.
"The court cap says that the prison system can keep housing 110,000 prisoners in prisons that were built for 80,000. So even under the court order, there are 30,000 more people in prison than the prisons were designed to house, to provide medical care for, to provide mental health care for. And at that level of crowding, it's extremely difficult to provide constitutional levels of care," she explained.
Are these cost cutting measures the right place to trip California’s bloated budget? And is this plan realistic for the largest prison system in the nation?
Guests:
Matt Cate, Secretary, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Rebekah Evensen, Senior Staff Attorney, Prison Law Office. Counsel on Brown v. Plata, the case that resulted in the Supreme Court’s prison crowding reduction order.
Julie Small, KPCC, State Capitol Reporter
Study: Significant increase in birth defects of IVF babies
Researchers crunched the data of 124,000 babies conceived with the help of technology and found they were a third more likely to suffer birth defects. The reason for the increased risk is unknown; the fertility treatments themselves may not be the cause.
Still, the scientists who published in the reputable journal Fertility and Sterility say a 37 percent increased risk is significant. Statistics show major birth defects occur in three out of every 100 babies born in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control. This new risk assessment would imply four out of 100 babies born using in vitro fertilization (IVF) or ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) could have defects.
Many would-be parents use reproductive technology because of existing health issues or age. Those factors could be contributing causes.
How do these new statistics square with previous studies? Are parents and fertility clinics taking too many risks using IVF and ICSI? What are the rights of an unborn child when you factor in these risks? Why isn't there more scientific research into the health risks of reproductive technology?
GUESTS
Arthur Caplan, Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Richard J. Paulson, MD; Director of USC Fertility; Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine; Dr. Paulson's work has extended to fertility in women over the age of 50 and, in 1997, he reported a successful pregnancy in the oldest woman on record at the time, aged 63.