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Attempt to impose death penalty moratorium fails in Assembly TOM CHORNEAU Associated Press SACRAMENTO - An attempt to impose a two-year moratorium on carrying out California's death penalty failed to pass a key Assembly committee Thursday, ending its chances for the year. Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, vowed to revive his bill later and blamed election-year politics for its demise. "There are enough Democrats that are worried that this would be misinterpreted - as it intentionally has been - that we made an agreement not to bring it up unless we were sure it would pass," he said after the...

SAN FRANCISCO (Court TV) — The debate over the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams may have subsided, but for Californians a period of intense soul-searching over the death penalty may just be starting. A month after the Crips founder was executed by lethal injection, state lawmakers are scheduled to begin hearings Tuesday on a bill which would place a moratorium on all executions until Jan. 1, 2009. The debate comes on the heels of the New Jersey legislature's approval of a similar moratorium Monday. The legislation in California, Assembly Bill 1121, would give a newly created bipartisan body — the...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Current and former prosecutors, including the author of California's 1978 death penalty initiative, are calling for a moratorium on executions in the state. Moratorium proponents say California has freed at least six men who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death since 1980. They expressed their concerns in a letter sent Monday to state Assembly members. "We agree that a temporary suspension of executions in California is necessary while we ensure, as much as is possible, that the administration of criminal justice in this state is just, fair and accurate," the letter states. The Assembly on...

Sacramento -- Amid the uproar over last week's execution of Stanley Tookie Williams, state lawmakers for the most part were notably silent. California politicians largely avoided the death penalty debate as advocates and opponents argued in newspapers and on television over whether the Crips co-founder and eventual anti-gang crusader deserved to live or die, and whether capital punishment was justice or barbarism. A petition asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare Williams by granting him clemency was circulated among legislative Democrats, but only nine -- out of 73 in the Assembly and Senate -- signed it. As five Democrats prepare to...

Death Penalty ReduxThe execution of Tookie Williams has brought new life to efforts to undermine California’s death penalty law. AB 1121, a two-year moratorium on executions introduced by Assemblyman Paul Koretz will be taken up by the state Assembly on January 10, just a week before 75-year-old convicted killer Clarence Ray Allen is sentenced to die. Koretz argues that the moratorium is necessary to assure that innocent people are not put to death while the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice reviews California’s criminal justice system. But California’s death penalty review process is already the most rigorous and...

SACRAMENTO — State legislators in early January will consider what is likely to be a contentious proposal to postpone executions for as long as three years. On Jan. 10, an Assembly committee plans to consider legislation that would place a moratorium on executions until a special commission finishes examining whether California's criminal justice system allows innocent people to be convicted. The bill, the first of its kind in Sacramento in more than a decade, faces substantial political and legal hurdles. Its hearing — scheduled long before convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams' execution Tuesday — comes as the state is poised...

SACRAMENTO -- State legislators in early January will consider what is likely to be a contentious proposal to postpone executions for as long as three years. On Jan. 10, an Assembly committee plans to consider legislation that would place a moratorium on executions until a special commission finishes examining whether California's criminal justice system allows innocent people to be convicted. The bill, the first of its kind in Sacramento in more than a decade, faces substantial political and legal hurdles. Its hearing — scheduled long before convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams' execution Tuesday — comes as the state is poised...

An attorney for four-time convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams, who is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday at San Quentin State Prison, filed an emergency request Saturday night with the state Supreme Court for a stay of execution. (snip) Williams has consistently denied he committed the murders, although he has apologized for his role as a co-founder of the Crips, a gang considered responsible for numerous murders in Los Angeles and beyond. Williams' convictions have been upheld by the California Supreme Court, a federal district court judge in Los Angeles, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the...