• Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for July 5th on 13:30

    These are my links for July 5th from 13:30 to 13:36:

    • Battle over California’s Three Strikes Law reflected in faces of now-freed prisoners for life – he Three Strikes Law was passed by both the Legislature and voters in 1994 after several high-profile murders committed by ex-felons sparked public outrage. The most notorious case was the strangling of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, who was kidnapped in 1993 from her Petaluma home.
      Under existing law, the first two strikes have to be violent or serious crimes, as defined by the penal code. Sentences are doubled for the second strike. But only California, out of 24 states with similar laws, allows the third strike to be any felony.
      People have received life sentences for stealing socks, attempting to break into a soup kitchen to get something to eat, and shoplifting golf clubs.
      Proponents are still working out the initiative's language, but at the very least it would limit felonies that trigger the third strike to violent or serious crimes. A similar initiative in 2004 drafted by a different group was initially ahead in the polls, but lost by about 3 percentage points after opponents mounted a last-minute ad blitz aimed at convincing voters that the measure would spring 26,000 dangerous felons from prison.
      This time, advocates of changing the law will try to keep the focus on the plight of third-strikers locked up for minor crimes — and the millions of dollars it costs taxpayers to keep them in prison. Even by the most conservative estimate, at least 2,757 of the 8,764 third-strikers now in prison — 31 percent — committed relatively minor offenses

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      You know I have never been convicted of one serious felony, not less two and then commit a third crime of which I have been convicted.

      Please give me a break.

      I, frankly, don't care if these inmates have turned their lives around. If they have been convicted of three felonies, stay in prison.

      If the prisons are overcrowded, then start deporting the illegal aliens in then and close the Mexican border.

    • Dan Walters: California’s death penalty punishes taxpayers, not killers – Sacramento Politics – California Politics | Sacramento Bee – When Gov. Jerry Brown canceled construction of a very expensive ($400 million) death row at San Quentin Prison, it was a small victory for common sense.

      While California has hundreds of men and a few women awaiting execution for murder, reality is that few, if any, will actually be put to death, given the immense legal and operational impediments.

      But maintaining the fiction that California has a death penalty for heinous crimes is very expensive when state and local governments face yawning deficits and are slashing basic educational, social and public safety services.

      A recent study by federal appellate Judge Arthur Alarcon and Paul Mitchell, a Loyola Law School professor, found that California is spending $184 million a year more on its 700-plus death row inmates than it would be spending were they serving life terms without parole.

      Other studies come up with different numbers, but not very different, and whatever the cost, it's too much.

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      Read it all…..

      Walters is going soft in his old age.

      Place it on the ballot and I bet Californians will support the death penalty.

      One of the major causes of the California prison breakdown is the rampant illegal immigration problem. When they commit crimes here, they are imprisoned here, otherwise they are deported and the criminals come back to re-offend.

      My suggestion is to seal the border with Mexico and start deporting illegal immigrants back to their countries of origin.

      Then, the California prisons will NOT be overcrowded and the funds saved can be used for speedy and swift justice for the death penalty.

      Walters says grow up.

      I have a number of murdered victims that I have written about on this blog that would beg to differ and are still waiting for some justice.