California Voters To Decide Fate Of Death Penalty: Will You Weigh In?

A measure to abolish California's death penalty qualified for the November ballot on Monday, the Associated Press is reporting.

The measure, dubbed the "Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act," also known as the SAFE California Act, got the more than the 504,760 valid signatures needed to place the measure on the ballot, the Associated Press reported.

“If it passes, the 725 California inmates now on Death Row will have their sentences converted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It would also make life without parole the harshest penalty prosecutors can seek,” the Associated Press reported.

The measure’s backers say doing away with the death penalty will save California millions of dollars by eliminating the nation's largest death row at San Quentin prison.

The measure will also require most inmates sentenced to life without parole to work inside prison. Most death row inmates do not hold prison jobs for security reasons, the Associated Press reports.

California hasn’t put any convicted criminals to death since 2006 after a federal judge that halted executions that year until prison officials built a new death chamber at San Quentin Prison, developed new lethal injection protocols and made other improvements to delivering the lethal three-drug combination, the Associated Press report continued.

Since California reinstated the death penalty in 1978, the state has executed 13 inmates. While the measure’s supporters argue that the state will save well over $100 million a year by abolishing the death penalty, opponents argue frivolous lawsuits, not the penalty, are what costs taxpayers.