Former M.A.S.H. star and anti-death penalty advocate Mike Farrell filed papers that would end the death penalty in California in the state’s attorney general’s office on Sept. 15.
The ballot initiative, “The Justice That Works Act of 2016” (The Act) would retroactively convert all California death sentences to life without possibility of parole, reported the Capital Alert.
“Violent killers convicted of first degree murder must be separated from society and severely punished,” and “murderers who are sentenced to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole in California are never eligible for parole. They spend the rest of their lives in prison and they die in prison,” The Act reads.
Since 1978, California sentenced nearly 1,000 murderers to death at a cost of more than $4 billion. However, there have been only 13 executions since 1978, and none in almost 11 years, according to The Act.
Under this ballot initiative, convicted murderers would be legally required to work and pay 60 percent of their wages as damages to compensate victims.
California’s death penalty system is more costly than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole by more than $100 million per year, according to The Act.
In addition, The Act cites the more than 150 innocent people who have been sentenced to death in the U.S. “The death penalty is a failed government program that wastes taxpayer dollars and makes fatal mistakes.”
The measure needs to collect 365,880 signatures by March 14 to qualify for the November 2016 ballot.
In 2012, 48 percent of Californians voted to end the death penalty while 52 percent favored keeping the law in place.
