‘Anticrime’ Measures That Aren’t : Props. 195 and 196 are unneeded; current laws can do the job

Make no mistake, carjackings and drive-by shootings are brazen, unforgivable crimes in which innocent people often are killed or maimed. Californians have not shrunk from imposing harsh punishment on those convicted of these brutal offenses. For that reason, Propositions 195 and 196 on next Tuesday’s ballot should receive a no vote. In many respects they would duplicate existing state law and waste taxpayer money.

Proposition 195 adds the act of first-degree murder committed during a carjacking or a carjacking-related kidnapping to the list of special circumstances that can generate the death penalty or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This measure also designates as a special circumstance the first-degree murder of a juror either in retaliation for performing his or her official actions or to prevent the juror from carrying out those duties.

But the law already allows prosecutors to charge carjackers with robbery, which can carry the death penalty. State law also permits the death penalty for the first-degree murder of a judge, prosecutor or any of several other state officials, although not a juror. While the murder of a juror would be no less forgivable, the premeditated murder of any individual, including a juror, is already a ground for requesting the death penalty.

Proposition 196 would permit the state to impose the death penalty on those convicted of first-degree murder committed during a drive-by shooting. Currently, such convictions generally carry a sentence of 25 years to life with the possibility of parole. But again, that’s not to say that existing special circumstances, for example, a retaliatory killing to prevent testimony or multiple premediated murders, could not be used as reasons to seek the death penalty in a drive-by murder.

Instead of imposing tougher punishment on criminals, Proposition 196 might just increase the costs of prosecution and incarceration. Death penalty cases are notoriously expensive to prosecute, and the appeal process, designed to ensure that innocent people are not executed, is long and slow. Thus 196 would appreciably add to already high public costs.

Although both proponents and opponents of these two legislative initiative amendments consider them referendums on the death penalty, they are not. Propositions 195 and 196 would merely add to the list of special circumstances when existing ones are sufficient. Propositions 195 and 196 sound tough on crime but mostly would be tough on the public coffers. Vote no.