Proposition 62 was a

California ballot proposition California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

on the November 8, 2016, ballot that would have repealed the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

and replaced it with

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

and

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

without possibility of

parole Parole, also known as provisional release, supervised release, or being on paper, is a form of early release of a prisoner, prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated ...

. It would have applied retroactively to existing death sentences and increased the portion of life inmates' wages that may be applied to victim

restitution Restitution and unjust enrichment is the field of law relating to gains-based recovery. In contrast with damages (the law of compensation), restitution is a claim or remedy requiring a defendant to give up benefits wrongfully obtained. Liability ...

. A September 2016 poll from

USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...

Dornsife /

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

showed 51% percent of registered voters in favor of Proposition 62, 40% opposed, and 9% unknown. Proposition 62 was rejected by voters in the November general election, with 46.9% voting to end executions. Proposition 66 was approved by voters in the same election, with 51.1% voting to speed up executions. If voters had passed both Proposition 62 and Proposition 66, then the measure with the most "Yes" votes would have taken effect. Proposition 62 was estimated to have reduced state spending by $150 million a year. Proponents spent $8.9 million fighting for Proposition 62, with the top contribution being $1.5 million from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

professor

Nick McKeown Nicholas (Nick) William McKeown FREng, is a Senior Fellow at Intel, a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments at Stanford University, and a visiting professor at Oxford University. He has also started technology co ...

. Other top contributing proponents include

Tom Steyer Thomas Fahr Steyer (; born June 27, 1957) is an American climate investor, businessman, hedge fund manager, philanthropist, environmentalist, political candidate and liberal activist. Steyer is the founder and former co-senior-managing-partner ...

Reed Hastings Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. (born October 8, 1960) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder and chairman of Netflix, Inc., which provides the Netflix streaming service. Hastings serves on a number of boards and works with various ...

John Doerr L. John Doerr (born June 29, 1951) is an American investor and venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the ...

, and Paul Graham. The measure was supported by the editorial boards of the ''

'', the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

'', and ''

The Sacramento Bee ''The Sacramento Bee'' is a daily newspaper published in Sacramento, California, in the United States. Since its foundation in 1857, ''The Bee'' has become the largest newspaper in Sacramento, the fifth largest newspaper in California, and the 2 ...

''. Opponents spent $4.4 million fighting against Proposition 62, with the top contribution being $498,303 from the California prison guards' union. Other top contributing opponents include the

California Highway Patrol The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is the principal state police agency for the U.S. state of California. The CHP has primary jurisdiction, including patrol and Criminal investigation, investigations, over all California Controlled-access highw ...

men's union, and the LAPD police union.

History

After the

Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the Supreme court, highest and final court of appeals in the judiciary of California, courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly ...

abolished the death penalty in ''

People v. Anderson ''The People of the State of California v. Robert Page Anderson'', 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628 ( Cal. 1972), was a landmark case in the state of California that outlawed capital punishment for nine months until the enactment of a constitutiona ...

'' (1972), California voters restored

capital punishment in California Capital punishment is not allowed to be carried out in the U.S. state of California due to a standing 2006 federal court order against the practice and a 2019 moratorium on executions ordered by Governor Gavin Newsom. The litigation resulting i ...

with California Proposition 17 (1972). However, since 1978, California has executed only 13 prisoners, while the population on death row has increased to 750. No prisoner has been executed since 2006, when a federal judge put a hold on the

lethal injection Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium) for the express purpose of causing death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but t ...

procedure the state was using. Abolition of the death penalty through California Proposition 34, 2012 was rejected by 52% of voters. The path to the ballot started when

Mike Farrell Michael Joseph Farrell Jr. (born February 6, 1939) is an American actor, best known for his role as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the television series '' M*A*S*H'' (1975–83). In addition, Farrell was a producer of '' Patch Adams'' (1998) starr ...

, an American actor and activist, wrote a

title A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify their generation, official position, military rank, professional or academic qualification, or nobility. In some languages, titles may be ins ...

and ballot summary on September 15, 2015. A title and summary was then issued by

California attorney general The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the government of California. The officer must ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" (Constitution of California, Article V, Section 13). The ...

's office on November 19, 2015. For a ballot to be qualified, 365,880 valid signatures are needed. On May 2, 2016, petitioners submitted the signatures to county officials. The deadline to submit the required signatures was May 17, 2016. Sponsors of the measure hired PCI Consultants, Inc. to collect signatures for the petition to qualify this measure for the ballot. A total of $3,192,775.30 was spent to collect the 365,880 valid signatures required to put this measure before voters, resulting in a total cost per required signature (CPRS) of $8.73.

References

{{reflist

External links

Yes on 62
2016 California ballot propositions Capital punishment in California Criminal penalty ballot measures in the United States Capital punishment referendums Capital punishment ballot measures in the United States