19 June 2019 :

Poll finds Californians support the death penalty — and Newsom’s moratorium on executions. Californians narrowly support Gov. Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on death row executions but they oppose abolishing the death penalty outright, a new poll shows. The findings offer some political affirmation for the Democratic governor who, after calling the death penalty immoral and unjust, stirred up controversy in March by issuing temporary reprieves to more than 700 inmates on California’s death row. Conducted for the Los Angeles Times by UC Berkeley’s Institute for Governmental Studies, the poll found that 52% of California voters backed Newsom’s decision to grant a blanket reprieve to all condemned inmates on death row, compared with 48% who opposed the governor’s action. The partisan divide was substantial, with 72% of Democrats supporting the moratorium and 85% of Republicans against it. But the survey also shows that a majority of Californians support capital punishment. Just over 61% of California voters said they supported keeping the death penalty as a “possible punishment for serious crimes,” compared with 39% who said it should be abolished, the poll found. A majority of registered Democrats, African American voters and Californians with post-graduate degrees opposed the death penalty, the survey found. The poll, which also asked voters about the 2020 presidential race and other issues, surveyed 4,435 registered voters statewide and was conducted online June 4 to 10. The results have an estimated sampling error of roughly 3 % points in either direction. California has executed 13 people since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. During that same time, 80 death row inmates have died of natural causes and 26 have died by suicide, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Using his executive powers under the California Constitution, Newsom in March (see HoC March 12) imposed a blanket reprieve of all death row inmates in California and vowed that no executions would take place while he served as governor. He also ordered the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison to be shuttered and suspended the state’s efforts to devise a method of lethal injection that would pass constitutional muster. Reprieves are in essence temporary stays of execution and can be lifted when Newsom leaves the governor’s office. The moratorium was one of the first major actions Newsom made after being sworn in as California’s 40th governor in January.