Moratorium on Executions in California Proposed
Written for the web by C. Johnson, Internet News Producer
# California Moratorium on Executions Act
The controversy and publicity generated by the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams is focusing attention on a measure that would suspend California's death penalty law for three years.
Assembly Bill 1121 would put executions in the state on hold until January 1, 2009. The bill's authors say that would give lawmakers time to study a review of the state's death penalty procedures being undertaken by The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. The commission is one year into its study, which must be completed by December 31, 2007. Legislators and criminal justice experts would have 2008 to go over the report and make recommendations, if necessary.
Unless lawmakers act on the recommendations or extend the suspension of the death penalty, the moratorium would end January 1, 2009.
With more than 100 death row convictions overturned since the 1970s because the accused were found to be innocent, the authors of "California Moratorium on Executions Act" say they fear an innocent person may be wrongly executed under current state procedures. "We can't gurantee that we don't have innocent people who have been put to death in California or will be," said AB 1121's co-author Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View.
http://www.kxtv.com/storyfull2.aspx?storyid=14772
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