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California Death Penalty Repeal Qualifies For November Ballot

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California voters will be asked to do away with the nation's largest death row after the secretary of state's office said the repeal measure qualified for the November ballot on Friday.

A second, competing initiative to speed up executions is also expected to be certified for the ballot soon, setting up a stark choice for voters sorting through numerous initiatives.

The repeal measure would substitute life sentences with no chance of parole for nearly 750 condemned inmates while ending legal challenges that have blocked executions for a decade.

Proponents and opponents did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

The proposal comes as state corrections officials consider substituting a single lethal drug for the three injections last used in 2006 to execute 76-year-old Clarence Ray Allen for ordering a triple murder.

A nationwide shortage of execution drugs has helped make it far more likely that a condemned inmate will die of natural causes or suicide than strapped to the gurney in California's new - and never used - execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison. California has executed just 13 condemned inmates since 1978.

The competing ballot measure aims to cut through the legal logjam by assigning attorneys more quickly to death sentence appeals, limiting the number of appeals and forcing them to be filed sooner. It would require the entire process to be completed within five years except under extraordinary circumstances.

Both measures must have more than 365,000 valid signatures to qualify. Both sides say their measures would save taxpayers millions of dollars. And both would require currently condemned inmates to work behind bars, with much of the money going to compensate victims' families.

If voters approve both measures, the one with the most votes prevails.

A similar attempt to abolish capital punishment failed by 4 percentage points in 2012.

A Field Poll earlier this year found a nearly even split among voters, with 48 percent wanting to speed up the legal process leading to executions and 47 percent seeking to replace executions with life sentences without the possibility of parole.

 

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.

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