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4A – Daily News – Monday, February 21, 2011 Opinion Capital punishment is killing us D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer’s home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. 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Until the 1972 California Supreme Court decision that the death penalty violated the state constitution, a total of 709 executions were car- ried out. After reinstatement with certain provisions in 1976 only 13 people have been executed by the state of California in the past 35 years. The California penal code pro- vides for possible capital punish- ment in the following cases: 1) treason against the state of Cali- fornia, defined as levying war against the state, adhering to its enemies, or giving them aid and comfort. 2) perjury causing exe- cution of an innocent person, 3) train wrecking which leads to a person's death or 4) first-degree murder with special circum- stances including financial gain, prior murder conviction, multiple murders, using explosives, avoid- ing arrest or aiding in escaping custody, peace officers, jurors, prosecutors, judges, or elected official victims, exceptional depravity, laying in wait for the victim, hate-crimes, robbery, kid- napping, rape, sodomy, lewd or lascivious behavior, oral copula- tion, burglary, arson, mayhem, rape by instrument, carjacking, poisoning, torture, discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle, and gang activities. With this broad list of circumstances virtually all first degree murder convictions are eligible for the death penalty. To date 138 death row inmates have been exonerated or had their charges dismissed due to com- pelling evidence of innocence. At only three, California curiously has a disproportionately small number. Nonetheless this proves the fallibility of our justice sys- tem, particularly for minorities where in many cases eye-witness testimony is belied by incontro- vertible forensic DNA evidence. I submit that with these miscar- riages, the justified expense and extended duration of death penal- ty appeals, the emotional and mental burdens of indefinite death row incarcerations, and per- sistent questions regarding the prudency and deterrence value of capital punishment, that the peo- ple of California are best served by ending the death sentence trav- esty. Presently 717 offenders, including 15 women, live on Cal- ifornia's "death row" giving us the dubious distinction of having the greatest number of any state, with nearly 20 percent of all death row inmates in the nation. The next great- est numbers are 395 in Florida and 339 in Texas. The high Cali- fornia numbers are due principally to four fac- tors: 1) the state has approximately 12 per- cent of the U.S. popula- tion, 2) the state is slow to carry out executions, 3) appeals are slow and exonerations low and 4) the rate of death sen- tencing is relatively high because the penal code permits capital punishment for such a broad range of crimes. As a result Cali- fornia residents have a 66 percent greater chance than other Ameri- cans to be on death row, and once there will most likely languish until they die of natural causes. I suggest that this is cruel and unusual punishment not only for the condemned but also for victim loved-ones, our prosecutors, jurors, and corrections officers who must bear extended delays associated with capital punish- ment administration as well as Richard Mazzucchi Positive Point taxpayers that must pay for the necessary appeals of death sen- tence convictions. It is this columnist’s opinion that Californian’s would best abolish the death penalty once and for-all to reduce human suffering and save the extraordinary costs of death sentence adjudi- cation and execution administration. By pro- viding certain life sen- tences without the pos- sibility of parole we can save billions of dollars and spare ourselves the uncertainty, trauma, and moral consternation of putting people to death. For more informa- tion visit the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty at www.ncadp.org. I hope you share my belief that concerns regarding the cost, fallibility, morality, uncertainty, and pruden- cy of death sentences far out- weigh their questionable deter- rence and revenge value. Please act now by contacting the repre- sentatives listed below to keep capital punishment from killing us, in more ways than one. Richard Mazzucchi is a retired research engineer specializing in energy efficiency and can be reached at living-green@att.net. Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814;(916) 445-2841;Fax (916) 558- 3160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S.REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2635 Forest Ave. Ste. 100, Chico, CA 95928; 893-8363. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393- 0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Mont- gomery St., Suite 240, San Francis- co, CA 94111; (415) 403-0100. Fax (202) 224-0454. Freedom challenged on this Presidents Day Commentary Maybe they are ultimately little, unimportant issues – or maybe they are challenges to self-govern- ment by free citizens. Examples of government entities engaging in the "you vill comply" approach to what they say are for our own good: ObamaCare, Smart Meters and the Antelope sewer proposal. Closest to home (literally, my home) is the proposed Antelope sewer project. Admittedly, there are perfectly fine rationales for col- lecting everyone’s effluent and poop and sending it all to a public facility for processing, without septic tanks, leach lines, and slight- ly filtered liquid passing into the ground. However, will folks with func- tioning systems and healthy well water be able to opt out of paying the many tens of thousands of dol- lars for the project? There are a lot of serious, anxious questions and not a lot of hard, verifiable facts or projections; emotions can under- standably take over. There will be an informational meeting this Thursday, February 24 at 7 PM, at the Community Baptist Church, 598 Roundup Ave. Issues of cost, property values and other related topics will be dis- cussed. It’s a serious situation; state agencies may get involved over our groundwater; we need more light than heat on the subject. Now, I’ll try to wrap my mind around the Smart Meter situation – we’ve been lectured to by our (apparent) betters with their inher- ent, not-to-be-questioned, superior insight and authority. Anyone can currently write down their meter reading each day, as I already do, calculate their kilowatt-hours and review what they used (laundry, sprinklers/well usage, AC). We already possess the ability to track our current hour-by-hour electrici- ty usage with real-time, computer- interactive systems seen on shows such as "This Old House." We already know that when our usage goes up, so do our bills. So, we are being told that we have no choice but to allow so- called Smart Meters to be placed on our homes, broadcasting unquantifiable amounts of radio frequency emissions. We’ll ulti- mately be forced to purchase Smart Meter compliant appliances, which will provide marketable information on our personal prod- uct usage to PG&E. They may offer a voluntary (at first, of course) program that allows PG&E to fid- dle with things like our air condi- tioning if they are running short of peak or spike demand electricity – say, if the wind dies down or it’s unexpectedly cloudy, and their expensive "green" energy outputs fall. Or they may offer (voluntarily or not) a time-of-use rate system, whereby you could defer such things as laundry drying to the middle of the night. Why stop there when you could do so many other things during low-rate nighttimes. Why not just get used to hustling everyone off to bed with heavy shades after school or work, set alarms to awaken after 10 PM, and have some great family time after midnight with broadcast or cable programming you aren’t used to, or computer and other interaction with other folks who’ve adjusted to night living, to take advantage of non-exorbitant electric rates? I almost forgot, you still won’t know exactly how much energy you used, and when, until the next day because all PG&E is doing is providing that information on a delayed basis; you will still have inferior moni- toring technology com- pared to what’s available now. Folks, what grates on me is the conde- scending attitude of apologists and cheer- leaders for the Smart Meter technology and system/grid. They just dismiss all objections as the so-called "bleatings" of we the sheeple, their inferiors. Doesn’t that rub you, too? linked to a variety of adverse health outcomes that may have significant public health conse- quences." Also, "RefuseSmart- Meters.com" has numer- ous sources and links that can inform you of your options. You should also know that PG&E could have used hard- wired meters, emitting no RF radiation while leaving your personal appliance use as your personal business. Civility watch: Pro- Don Polson The way I see it I mentioned the concerns many folks have over the radio frequency (RF) emissions and potential health impacts. I am sensitive to both sides: on the one hand, you can enter "radio frequency emis- sion health risks" in a search win- dow, and look up a website called "www.emeter.com" and get PG&E, as well as smart grid indus- try-friendly, studies discounting the risks. You can also go to "EMFsafe- tynetwork.org" and access literally hundreds of studies that are yes, no, or undecided on the health risks. The first sentence of "Public health implications of wireless technologies," by Sage and Car- penter, is "Exposure to electro- magnetic fields (EMF) has been gressive/liberal protest- ers outside a conserva- tive gathering in Rancho Mirage made racist, vio- lent remarks on camera calling for somebody to "string up" African American Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or "send him back into the fields" or "cut off all his toes and feed them to him one-by- one." They must’ve missed the memo. ObamaCare and freedom? Fuhgetaboutit! To readers: It was, indeed, an error of flawed memory when I mistakenly wrote "U.S. Constitu- tion" instead of "Declaration of Independence." I corrected my error in the first comment on my column online. I thank those who pointed out the error. For the fact checkers, it was the first such error in literally years. Don Polson can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com.