California Voters to Decide Whether to Close Death Row
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Voters in California, with more prisoners on death row than any other U.S. state, will decide in November whether to repeal use of capital punishment 40 years after it was approved by two-thirds of the electorate.
Advocates of the initiative, which would change the maximum criminal penalty from execution to life in prison without the possibility of parole, gathered enough signatures to place the issue on the ballot, Secretary of State Debra Bowen said yesterday in a statement.