Waiting to die: the hundreds condemned to years on death row in California

[snoop1130]

Waiting to die: the hundreds condemned to years on death row in California
Euronews

CALIFORNIA, USA -- Hundreds of convicted killers are languishing in limbo on death row in California.

No-one has been executed in the state in almost a decade yet courts continue to sentence defendants to die.

Hence a build-up of condemned inmates at the state’s San Quentin prison, north of San Francisco.

The media has been invited inside to meet them.

“Currently there are 725 individuals who are housed here at San Quentin on death row,” Lieutenant Sam Robinson of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told reporters.

“The current death row population in the state of California is about 745. Those include women who are housed at another facility.”

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Support for capital punishment has fallen in California where just 13 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978.

The most populous state in the country, California is liberal and a Democratic stronghold.

Some prisoners awaiting execution at San Quentin have been on death row for more than three decades.

Dozens have died of natural causes on California’s death row, the largest in the United States, and 24 have committed suicide.

“Most of us sit here for years and years waiting on the appeals process, so it is not really something that is in the forefront of your mind,” said Charles Crawford, sentenced to death in 2002 for killing two people including a teenage girl.

“It is like an abstract thought because it is not something that happens every day. Since I have been here, they have only carried out two executions, you know what I mean, so it is almost like it is not even a real punishment for a lot of people.”

California’s system for imposing and carrying out the death penalty is so long and drawn-out that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled in 2014.

Legal rows over drugs used in a series of botched lethal injections have contributed to a decline in the number of executions across the US.

Opposing camps in California are campaigning for the death penalty to be either speeded up or abolished altogether in 2016.

Source: http://www.euronews.com/2015/12/30/waiting-to-die-the-hundreds-condemned-to-years-on-death-row-in-california/

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-30-12

[craigt3365]

Convicted killers. No sympathy.

[nottocus]

Death penalty forever man.

[bangkapi]

There is clearly a sexist agenda to have so many men on death row and so few women.. I'm all for more "diversity"

Don't they get it that we are EQUAL? There needs either to be some serious investigations done or we need a commission to appoint more women on death row to bring their numbers up to 51%.

Where is the crowd picketing for this kind of justice to be done? I'll be the first to join in.

[JetsetBkk]

"it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled in 2014"

"Most of us sit here for years and years waiting on the appeals process"

So don't appeal and get it over with.

[MisterTee]

Dysfunctional justice system in a much deteriorated country.

[HLover]

Waiting to die or keeping lawyers paid while suckling the taxes of the debt ridden country?

Languishing? Or x3 meals a day and climate controlled living quarters?

Plus, maybe man on man action if desired.

The pity train just left the station...

Edited December 30, 2015 by HLover

[NeverSure]

"The most populous state in the country, California is liberal and a Democratic stronghold."

Er, Kalifornicate is a Democrat stronghold aka a stronghold of Democrats. That's why it's so #@$%$ up.

Cheers.

[Ireland32]

Dysfunctional justice system in a much deteriorated country.

.Yada Yada Yada really believe this, Well keep hoping, lol Hater

[phitsanulokjohn]

The waiting is the real punishment.

[sanukjim]

The US is so slow in executing these condemned .The solution might be to send many of them to Saudi Arabia to use their speedy system or see if Germany has any of the gas chambers that could be refurbished and import them.

[bbbbooboo]

I think whatever happens they deserve to die and if it takes a long time for this to happen, so be it. This will give them the same mercy they gave their victims and is more than appropriate.

[TEFLKrabi]

"it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled in 2014"

"Most of us sit here for years and years waiting on the appeals process"

So don't appeal and get it over with.

Of course, they could be appealing because they were wrongly convicted!

[NoshowJones]

Death penalty forever man.

Death penalty OK, but only if caught in the act, or there is 100% certainty, not because the prosecution lawyer is better than the defence lawyer.

[Scott]

An inflammatory, off-topic post has been removed.

[maingmoom]

Why wait years. Get it over quickly and take the burden off the taxpayers.

[oneday]

My heart bleeds for them........................NAH! just joking.

Assuming every one of them is guilty then I could care less.