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California capital punishment abolished in 1972...
California capital punishment abolished in 1972...
Item # 723282
February 19, 1972
THE NEW YORK TIMES, Feb. 19, 1972
* Capital punishment - death row executions banned
* California Supreme Court decision (1st report)
* Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan mention
The top of the front page has a one column heading: "CALIFORNIA COURT, IN 6-1 VOTE, BARS DEATH SENTENCES" with subhead. (see images) Mention of a few notable death row inmates that benefited by this decision that includes cult killings mastermind Charles Manson.
I suspect this to be a very rare item because there was really no reason to save it at the time.
Complete with all 52 pages, nice condition.
AI notes: On February 18, 1972, the California Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision in People v. Anderson, ruling that the state’s death penalty statute violated the California Constitution’s prohibition against “cruel or unusual punishment.” This ruling effectively invalidated all existing death sentences, commuting the sentences of the 107 inmates on California’s death row to life imprisonment, many with the possibility of parole, and temporarily ended capital punishment in the state. The court found that the death penalty, as applied at the time, was arbitrary, degrading, and inconsistent with evolving standards of decency. The decision sparked widespread political and public controversy, leading California voters in November 1972 to pass Proposition 17, amending the state constitution to declare that capital punishment is not cruel or unusual, thereby reinstating the death penalty prospectively. This ruling occurred just months before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Furman v. Georgia decision in June 1972, which halted executions nationwide by finding that many death penalty systems were applied arbitrarily, making California’s brief abolition part of a broader national debate over the legality and fairness of capital punishment.
Category: The 20th Century
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