Initiative Submitted to Abolish Death Penalty

Backers of an initiative that would replace the death penalty with a life sentence without parole will submitted signatures last week in downtown Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco in an attempt to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

What backers have dubbed as the Savings Accountability and Full Enforcement California Act has received ``far and above the minimum'' of the 504,760 valid signatures from registered voters to qualify, according to Jason Howe of Taxpayers for Public Safety, the campaign on behalf of the initiative.

There are two death penalty murder cases awaiting trial from Seal Beach and Los Alamitos that would be affected if voters elect to eliminate the death penalty. Scott Evans Dekraai, accused of murdering eight people at Salon Meritage and Daniel Patrick Wozniak, accused of murdering two people and dismembering one at the Liberty Theater in Los Alamitos, both face the death penalty if convicted.

The initiative would apply retroactively to people already sentenced to death and require convicted killers to work while imprisoned, with their wages to be applied to any victim restitution fines or orders against them. It would set aside $100 million in savings for DNA testing and fingerprint analysis in an attempt to help solve more homicide and rape cases.

Passage of the measure would result in net savings to the state and counties of ``the high tens of millions of dollars annually on a statewide basis,'' according to an analysis prepared by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor and Director of Finance Ana J. Matosantos.

The initiative's proponent is former San Quentin State Prison Warden Jeanne Woodford, who oversaw four executions. It is also supported by former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti and the Catholic Bishops of California.

``The death penalty in California is broken and unfixable,'' Garcetti said.  Opponents of the initiative, including the California District Attorneys Association, say the death penalty deters crimes, and commuting the death sentences of condemned inmates is unfair to victims' families, who expect closure.

California's death penalty law was approved by voters in 1978 and has resulted in 13 executions, the most recent in 2006. Since the death penalty was reinstated, more death row inmates have died by suicide than by execution.

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-City News Service Contributed to this report