CA to Vote on Abolishing Death Penalty

One of the largest death rows in the United States may shut down if California voters approve a measure this November. The measure, which qualified for the ballot yesterday, would replace death with life in prison without parole as the state's toughest penalty. More than 700 people on death row would have their sentences commuted. Part of the motivation is financial: the legal process takes so long, those 700 prisoners are more likely to die of old age than by injection, and the 13 inmates that California has successfully executed in the last 23 years cost taxpayers $4 billion.