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"Races could test voters' views on death penalty"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this article from the front-page of today's San Francisco Chronicle.  Here is how it gets started: For decades, capital punishment was a driving force in California politics, swaying elections for governor and the U.S. Senate and reshaping the state Supreme Court. While executions in California have been on hold for more than four years, tied up in court challenges to lethal injection procedures that the state is now redrafting, November's elections may determine whether the death penalty still carries political weight. The contrasts at the top of the major parties' tickets could not be starker. Democrats Jerry Brown and Kamala Harris, the candidates for governor and attorney general, oppose capital punishment and have acted on their beliefs -- Brown by vetoing a death penalty bill when he was governor in 1977, Harris by refusing to seek death sentences as San Francisco district attorney...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on July 13, 2010 (boomark / email).