After signing an executive order that will place a moratorium on the death penalty in California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom gave an emotional explanation of his decision Wednesday, saying he could not morally allow executions in the Golden State to go forward.
"It's a very emotional place that I stand in," he said, noting that the subject was once "an abstract question" for him, but now he is "the backstop" for any execution that takes place in California. "And so I am expressing this is not from (a) paradigm of politics. It's not a situational conversation for me. This is about who I am as a human being. ... To me this is the right thing to do."
Newsom noted that the only thing standing in the way of executions resuming in California is the judicial review of the state's lethal injection procedure, which could be completed soon. Citing a National Academy of Sciences report estimating that 1 out of every 25 people on death row is innocent, Newsom said he could not countenance the odds of putting an innocent person to death.
"If that's the case, that means if we move forward executing 737 people in California, we will have executed roughly 30 people that are innocent," Newsom said. "I don't know about you. I can't sign my name to that. I can't be party to that. I won't be able to sleep at night."
See the full
article here.
“….the subject was once
"an abstract question" for him,…”
There, in one
off the cuff remark – the truth spoken accidentally - is the essence of what’s
wrong with liberalism. Nothing matters
until it happens to me. I find it stunning that a man of Newsom’s age
and resume is only just now pondering the weighty question of wrongful
conviction and the death penalty, but I
ought to be used to it by now. How many
of our laws, named for the predictable victims of predictable crimes, are born
as a consequence of a liberal’s stunned discovery that they too can be a
victim? Too much thinking in the
abstract and not enough putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, just like we
see with the Left’s nonchalant attitude towards the victims of illegals. That said, it’s no surprise to me whatsoever
that, having had his epiphany about executing “innocent” people who are on
death row, California’s Liberal-in-Chief still gets it wrong.
If I were
the governor of California, or any state for that matter, and if I believed reports that 1 out of
every 25 people on death row is innocent, it might occur to me that there is
something seriously wrong with our justice system that requires immediate
investigation, because our multi-layered appeals system is supposed to be the
fail-safe against wrongful convictions, right?
If everyone is doing their job appropriately and with integrity, there
should be virtually NO innocent people sitting on death row after all appeals
have been exhausted. How is it possible
that this isn’t the case? If Gavin
Newsom truly believes that 4% of the people on death row are innocent, then he
must also believe that our appeals system is broken, and yet in his “emotional”
proclamation against the death penalty he proposes to do nothing about it. No help will be coming for the “1 in 25
innocent people” who are languishing in prison because Gavin Newsom thinks his
job is done by sparing them from the death penalty. This is the Left’s idea of what it means to
be heroic.
So what
could Newsom do? As someone keenly
interested in the subject of crime and punishment, I’ve seen dozens of cases
where people have been wrongfully convicted, though how many are on death row
is a separate question (more on that later).
In nearly every case the system failed due to either human error or corruption. The correction for that is surprisingly
simple and yet agonizingly absent. It’s
called “A-C-C-O-U-N-T-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y.” Every case of wrongful conviction should
be thoroughly studied to determine what went wrong, and if there were mistakes
or wrongdoing those responsible should be held to account by losing their jobs,
their licenses or by legal punishment if that’s appropriate. But we don’t live in an age of consistent accountability. Nowadays, when convictions are overturned due
to mistakes and malfeasance, the victims are compensated by large payouts from
other innocents: the taxpayers; and all
too often the inept and corrupt keep doing what they do. Where is Gavin Newsom’s outrage about that?
He has no outrage because he’s a voluntary player in that very system.
Do I believe
1 in 25 people on death row are wrongfully
convicted? Actually, no – not on death
row. That’s because I believe
prosecutors tend not to seek the death penalty unless they have a mountain of damning
evidence and because the system is weighted in favor of the accused. That doesn’t mean it never happens, but I believe
that it’s exceptionally rare, especially in these days of modern science. But what I believe is irrelevant to my
criticism of Gavin Newsom, because his claim is that he believes 4% of people on death row are wrongfully convicted.
By the way, I
am a proponent of the death penalty because it’s what some people deserve. We shouldn’t have to indefinitely feed, clothe
and house people who disregard the rights of others and kill for greed and
pleasure. They voluntarily forfeited
their rights to live, in my humble opinion.
But I do believe that wrongful convictions do occur and are a blight on
us as a society, and what people need to understand is that there’s no contradiction
in supporting the death penalty if you also
adhere to the principle that holding people accountable for their actions keeps
the system working as it was intended so that “justice” really means justice.
~CW
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