Press Release: Green Party supports Criminal Justice Reform in Props 34 and 36 - Repeal Death Penalty and Fix Three-Strikes

NEWS ADVISORY
GREEN PARTY of CALIFORNIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Laura Wells, GPCA spokesperson, 510-504-4254 laurawells2014@gmail.com
Don Macleay, Oakland City Council candidate, 510-290-1200 don@oaklandgreens.org  
 
(SACRAMENTO) In the name of promoting less injustice statewide, the Green Party endorses Propositions 34 and 36, to end the Death Penalty and to reform the Three Strikes Law, respectively.
 
"Non-violence is one of the Green Party's Key Values and the Green Party has unconditionally opposed capital punishment since the party started," said Don Macleay, an Oakland Green City Council candidate who has been working to end the death penalty for years. "In practice the death penalty is also applied disproportionately in a racially biased manner, and to the least advantaged and most vulnerable in society, extending even to the race and economic class of the victim. This means this is a profound civil rights issue as well."
 
"Therefore, the Green Party believes that the death penalty should be eliminated immediately and unconditionally, and endorses Prop 34 to help bring this about."
 
The GPCA also endorsed Proposition 36, the “Three-Strikes Law” Reform Act.
 
Greens have consistently opposed the “Three Strikes” law since its origin in 1994," said Laura Wells, Green Party spokesperson. "The multiple problems with the original Three Strikes law that the Green Party warned about have come to pass - our prisons contains thousands of people serving sentences up to life imprisonment for non-violent (and other often relatively minor) 'third strike' crimes.  Stories of injustice in sentencing resulting from the present law are legendary."
 
"By contrast, Prop 36  is an enormous improvement over the present Three Strikes law," added Wells, who was the party's 2010 gubernatorial candidate. "It inserts the words 'violent and serious' before the word 'felony'when referring to any of the three convictions being considered for sentencing.  As a result, no longer will citizens face indeterminate lifetime sentences for having committed three low level felonies in the course of their lives.  Only three violent and serious strikes will result in life sentences."
 

Read the full Green Party of California position on:

See also the Green Party's press release on Props 30/31/38/39 and on Prop 37.
 
For more information:
 
Green Party of California: http://cagreens.org

 

 

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