TRAILING

Bid to end death penalty down in early count

Even as Californians on Tuesday softened their stance on the state’s tough Three Strikes Law, they were just as ready to stick to their long- held views on the death penalty by rejecting a ballot measure to replace it with life sentences without parole.

Californians looked to be grudging with their votes, with early results showing they were ready to reject as many as seven of the 11 statewide measures on the ballot.

Also appearing headed for defeat were Proposition 31, the government reform measure; Proposition 33, the insurance industrybacked measures that would have allowed drivers with continuous coverage to keep their discounts but also would have allowed insurers to raise rates on others; and Proposition 37, the measure to require labels for genetically modified foods.

Heading for possible victory were Proposition 35, the measure to impose stricter penalties for human trafficking; and Proposition 40, which keeps intact the redrawing of Senate district lines.

Trailing but undecided was Proposition 32, the controversial initiative that would have curbed labor’s ability to raise political money and was the recipient of millions of dollars from shadowy out- of- state groups that became entangled with the state’s political campaign watchdog and attorney general.

Proposition 36, however, was a different story. Eighteen years after Californians overwhelmingly approved the country’s toughest Three Strikes Law, they made an aboutface, easing the habitualoffender statute in a vote likely to infl uence criminal justice policies nationwide.

The measure revises the Three Strikes Law to impose a life sentence under only two circumstances — when the new felony conviction is “serious or violent,” or for a minor felony crime if the perpetrator is a murderer, rapist or child molester. Under the existing Three Strikes Law, offenders who have committed such relatively minor third strikes as stealing a pair of socks or attempting to break into a soup kitchen for food have been sentenced to life in prison.

“Tonight’s vote sends a powerful message to policymakers in California and across the country that taxpayers are ready for a new direction in criminal justice,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project.

It had been more than three decades since California voters had a chance to decide whether to retain the death penalty.

The measure would have converted the death sentences of California’s 727 death row inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Backers of the measure focused their arguments on the cost of California’s notoriously slow capital punishment system. But law enforcement offi cials, victims’ rights groups and three of California’s former governors aligned against the measure, arguing that the death penalty should be preserved for the state’s most heinous killers. California has executed just 13 inmates since restoring the death penalty in 1978, the result of an appeals process that takes decades.

“I’m not surprised we’re down in early voting,” said Natasha Minsker, Proposition 34’ s campaign manager. “They will get higher as the night goes on.”

Proposition 32 proponents had hoped to win over Californian voters by appealing to their hostility to special- interest groups in Sacramento.

The authors of the measure had failed twice before with so- called paycheck protection ballot measures, which explicitly went after labor’s ability to collect their members’ dues for political purposes.

Proposition 37 would have required labeling of genetically modifi ed foods. California was trying to become the first state to require a “genetically modified” label on a host of food products, from breakfast cereals to tofu, while exempting dairy, meat, alcohol and restaurant meals.