Background

In 1971 Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia held that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment, but in 1978 the justices voted on it again and it was re-instated as constitutional and allowed once more. Since then there have been many executions because of it and a lot of taxpaying dollars have been used towards funding these criminals on death row. There have also been cases where a person was incorrectly found innocent and unjustly suffered the morbid punishment. Proposition 34 replaces the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole. Some believe that it is crueler to let a person rot in prison for eternity. Many also believe that the just punishment for murder is death of the murderer. Although it was close, Prop 34 did not pass losing with only 47.7% of the votes.

-Michelle Rainey

Sources

http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42