BOOK REVIEW: Not Dead Yet (DSI Roy Grace, #3) by Peter James

Not Dead Enough is the third book in the long-running and best-selling Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series written by Peter James set in the Southern England area of Brighton and Hove. These books are British police procedural novels in the mystery, crime, suspense, thriller and detective genres. After reading the first three books I have a growing admiration for the superior quality of the series and understand why they have sols so well and are soon to be adapted into a television series by the BBC (what took so long?). In the first three books, we have been exposed to three very different but compelling stories which DSI Grace has successfully solved. Happily, these are not simplistic portrayals of our hero cracking the case on their own, figuring out things that have stumped everyone else through the use of magical power or plot devices. Instead the books are centered around depictions of collaborative teams of investigators working together to try and bring perpetrators of horrible and horrific crimes to justice.

In addition to Grace, other interesting characters we spend a fair amount of time with include DS Glenn Branson (Grace’s best mate who happens to be big, bald and black; he is going through some marital trouble in Not Dead Enough and so the two are currently temporarily living together!), Cleo Morey (Grace’s new heterosexual love interest) and a number of other police officers who are on Grace’s team (such as his frightful superior the Assistant Chief Constable, the boorish DS Potting, the up-and-coming DC Nichols, etc).

The central mystery in Not Dead Enough is pretty interesting and intriguing. The wife Katie (and mistress) Holly of a successful local business owner named Brian Bishop are both found dead, naked, raped and garroted with World War 2-era gas masks on their faces within days of each other. It takes awhile for the police to even realize that Brian is related to both deaths, primarily because even though he is the main suspect when his wife Katie’s body is found (it’s always the husband!), he doesn’t appear to be lying when he adamantly denies knowing Holly and repeats in every interview how much he loved his wife. He has a pretty strong alibi since he was having dinner in London right before his wife was being murdered in Brighton. Similarly, although there’s an eyewitness saying they saw someone matching Brian’s description the afternoon before Holly’s body was found, Brian was being closely watched by Brighton police in that time period. So, police need to find someone who looks like (and somehow has easy access to significant quantities of Brian’s DNA.) James does a good job of providing interesting twists on the expected solution to this mystery. (One of the tag lines of the book is "How can someone be in two places at the same time?"

Another thing the author does well in Not Dead Enough (and the other books in the series so far) is to strategically provide the reader with information about the motivations of multiple characters (even the perpetrator!) This works frighteningly well, especially when the characters we care about are placed in imminent danger and the suspense ratchets up to pulse-pounding levels. (Happily this time the source of suspense is entirely sourced not in the mortal danger to our main character. Overuse of this plot device is an annoying pet peeve of mine; far too many authors use it too often as a cheap means to engage readers in the story.)

Overall, Not Dead Enough is another excellent entry in the DSI Roy Grace series. We get advances in the lifestories of many of the main characters and they solve an exciting and puzzling mystery. This series is definitely on my list to follow to its conclusion.

Title: Not Dead Enough.
Author: Peter James.
Length: 546 pages.
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Pan.
Date Published: August 1, 2007.
Date Read: December 5, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Missing and the Dead (DS Logan McRae, #9) by Stuart MacBride

The Missing and the Dead is the ninth book in the Detective Sergeant Logan McRae series, a collection of murder-mystery, police-procedural, best-selling books set in Aberdeen , Scotland written by Stuart MacBride. In this book, however, Logan has been transferred to the rural suburbs of the city called Aberdeenshire as a professional development opportunity which could strengthen his case for his long-delayed promotion to Detective Inspector.

The first body that is discovered is that of a very little girl, roughly the same age as Logan’s own biological child (he is presumptively the spad, i.e. sperm dad, of the daughter his lesbian boss’s wife had 5-6 years ago). That boss is the singular Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel, who abuses Logan constantly and has an expansive (some would say "situational") view of police regulations. Steel was the subject of her own recently published spin-off, Now We Are Dead, in 2017 which in my opinion was not a very successful outing. 

One of the main features of The Missing and the Dead that is very different from previous entries in the series is the focus on local policing. Logan is the deputy head of a rural police station with some unusual characters. The Logan McRae series are generally police procedurals but this entry takes the details  (and monotony) of actual policing to the extreme. The typical crimes Logan and his fellow officers have to deal with are shoplifting, domestic violence and illegal drug use (as well as teenage vandals who delete in spray-painting large images of "willies" on public billboards) . More seriously, there’s also an ongoing crime wave of ATM machine thefts (smash and grab) as well as a known ring of pedophiles who appear to be disappearing and turning up dead.

Happily the distinguishing element of Logan McRae books from most other works in the genre of British police procedurals is very present here and that is the amount of humor (and nearly incomprehensible Scottish slang) that are always included.

Overall, I don’t think this entry is as effective as the earlier books in the series were, primarily because it is too long (there are multiple overlapping and intersecting criminal threads and an entire romantic arc that simply complicate the plot without improving the story). The series is highly sequential and so now that we are in Book 9 things that happen to Logan and other However, The Missing and the Dead  is rescued by a Cracker Jack thriller of an ending that positively affected my overall impression of the book.

Title: The Missing and the Dead.
Author: Stuart MacBride.
Paperback: 592 pages.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: January 15, 2015.
Date Read: April 12, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

CRIME: Black Lesbian Couple (And 2 Kids) Slaughtered In Troy, NY

I spent 8 years living in upstate New York attending college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. So when I see Troy in the news it catches my attention. This week I saw a story about the horrific murder of a Black lesbian couple and their two kids.

The New York Times reported on the story:

The police identified the victims as Shanta Myers, 36; her children Jeremiah, 11, and Shanise, 5; and her partner, Brandi Mells, 22. Jackie Robinson Sr., the pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church, told The Times Union that Ms. Myers also had an older son who was not home when the killings happened. 

[...] 

The family was found dead on Tuesday afternoon in their basement apartment at 158 Second Avenue, in a neighborhood of subdivided Victorian houses along the Hudson River. Chief Tedesco said the number of victims, their age and the way they were killed — which he declined to describe — made the crime the worst he had seen in more than 40 years in law enforcement.

The latest news is that two suspects have been arraigned in the case: Justin Mann and James White.

I will be following this case closely to find out what the reason for the vicious murder of this family was. The youngest child was 5!

Hat/tip to Pink News

GRAPHIC: Crime Rate versus Stop-and-Frisk in NYC

Kevin Drum has an excellent post today describing the facts about stop-and-frisk in New York City which graphically shows the relationship between the crime rate and stop-and-frisk policy (which stopped doing in 2014 after a federal district court judge ruled the NYPD's policy was illegal racially profiling Black and Latino men).

Since a picture is worth a  thousand words, I'll let the graphic speak for itself! But you can also read Kevin Drum's piece yourself.

Killer Cop Darren Wilson Resigns From #Ferguson Police Department

Darren Wilson, the police officer whose fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old African-American man named Michael Brown  in Ferguson, MO in August 2014 has been the subject of protests around the country, has released a public letter of resignation less than a week after a grand jury refused to indict him on any criminal charges relating to his actions that resulted in the death of Brown.

"I, Darren Wilson, hereby resign my commission as a police officer with the City of Ferguson effective immediately. I have been told that my continued employment may put the residents and police officers of the City of Ferguson at risk, which is a circumstance that I cannot allow. For obvious reasons, I wanted to wait until the grand jury made their decision before I officially made my decision to resign. It was my hope to continue in police work, but the safety of other police officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal. I would like to thank all of my supporters and fellow officers throughout this process."

Wilson's actions and words have raised the profile of racial differences in the country, in particular as they relate to police relations with minority communities.

Hat/tip to Wonder Man

President Obama Makes Statement About Disturbing Police Activity In Ferguson, MO

President Obama has made an appearance where he uses the term "excessive force" in describing the disturbing situation in Ferguson, MO. Obama where the police have been using aggressively militaristic tactics like tear gas, firing rubber bullets at protesters and arresting journalists to "maintain order" in response to community protests about the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed African American male, on Saturday August 9.

UPDATE: Father Of Murdered Black Lesbian Arrested

There is a shocking update in the story of the Black lesbian couple whose bodies were found dumped near a dumpster in Galveston County over the weekend. James Larry Cosby, the father of one of the victims, has been arrested in connection with the crime.

The Houston Chronicle reports:

James Larry Cosby, 46, of Houston, is charged with two counts of tampering with evidence in the deaths of his daughter, Britney Cosby, and Crystal Jackson, according to the Galveston County Sheriff's Office. Both women were 24. 

Deputies said Cosby is in the Galveston County jail in lieu of $500,000 bail. Charges against him, deputies added, may be upgraded to capital murder as the investigation continues.

Cosby was arrested early Thursday morning after investigators interviewed him about the case following a vigil in Houston for the slain women, said Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset.

Tcochesset said statements Cosby made to investigators as well as evidence in the home where he lived with his daughter and his daughter's great-grandmother led to his arrest. He declined to elaborate about what Cosby said or what evidence was found because the case is still being investigated.

Kudos to the Galveston County Sheriffs for making an arrest so quickly in the case. This situation just seems to be getting more and more tragic.

Hat/tip to Joe Jervis

Houston Black Lesbian Couple Found Murdered; Police Sketch of Suspect Released

The LGBT blogosphere is buzzing with the sad news that an African-American lesbian couple have been found murdered in Galveston County, Texas. The two women, both 24, have been identified as Crystal Jackson and Britney Cosby. Cosby has a 5-year-old daughter and the two women had been living together and raising the child together.

Police have released a composite sketch of the person they think had been seen riding in the women's car, a 2006 Kia Sorento SUV.

Galveston County Sheriff's Office is asking for anyone with information to call 1-866-248-8477.

UPDATE: New York City Settles Stop And Frisk Lawsuit!

Good news out of New York City! The election of Bill de Blasio as mayor of the city has resulted in a settlement in the lawsuit over the controversial New York Police Department policy of "stop and frisk." This decision ends the City's appeal of the landmark district court ruling that had declared that stop-and-frisk violated the United States constitution and was racially discriminatory.

The New York Times reports:

New York City will settle its long-running legal battle over the Police Department’s practice of stopping, questioning and often frisking people on the street — a divisive issue at the heart of the mayoral race last year — by agreeing to reforms that a judge ordered in August, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday. 

In making the announcement, which he said he hoped would end a turbulent chapter in the city’s racial history, Mr. de Blasio offered a sweeping repudiation of the aggressive policing practices that had been a hallmark of his predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg, but that had stoked anger and resentment in many black and Latino neighborhoods. He essentially reversed the course set by Mr. Bloomberg, whose administration had appealed the judge’s ruling. 

“We’re here today to turn the page on one of the most divisive problems in our city,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference. “We believe in ending the overuse of stop-and-frisk that has unfairly targeted young African-American and Latino men.”

The organization which sued the city over the stop-and-frisk policy, the Center for Constitutional Rights, said:

“Today is the beginning of a long-overdue process: the reform of the NYPD to end illegal and racially discriminatory policing. For too long, communities of color have felt under siege by the police, and young Black and Latino men have disproportionately been the target. We are glad to have reached an agreement with the City and commend Mayor de Blasio for promising to drop the appeal and embracing reform.  We are eager to finally begin creating real change.”

 This is excellent news and another reminder that elections have consequences!

George Zimmerman Trial Begins TODAY

George Zimmerman admits to shooting and killing Trayvon Martin,
an unarmed Black teenager

Finally! More than a year after the news about the fatal shooting of another unarmed Black male became a huge sensation, the trial of Trayvon Martin's killer is beginning in a Florida courtroom today. George Zimmerman, 29, claims he shot and killed the 17-year-old in self-defense. The story became an international story when police authorities in Sanford, FL questioned but released Zimmerman after hearing his story, raising questions about how police in a Southern state consider and (de)value the life of Black person. After weeks of marches and protests in multiple American cities, Zimmerman was finally arrested an charged with a crime (second-degree murder).

According to CNN:

Monday marks the start of jury selection in Seminole County, Florida, where Martin was fatally shot on February 26, 2012. The shooting put a national spotlight on Zimmerman's hometown of Sanford and sparked fresh debates about race relations and gun laws in America.  

Zimmerman is Hispanic; Martin was African-American. 

An initial decision not to pursue charges against Zimmerman led to the dismissal of the town's police chief and the appointment of a special prosecutor, who accused the neighborhood watch volunteer of unjustly profiling and killing Martin. 

Zimmerman now faces a second-degree murder charge in Martin's death. He has pleaded not guilty and is currently free on $1 million bond.

The Zimmerman-Martin case became another Rorshach test on race in America. We (at MadProfessah.com) shall be watching to see if the criminal justice system (in Florida, no less) can pass the test of "equal treatment under the law."

WATCH: Trailer for "Oscar Grant movie" (Fruitvale Station)

There's a major motion picture being made about the horrible killing of Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009 by an Oakland police officer. It's called Fruitvale Station. The trailer is out now!

Maryland Becomes 18th State To End Death Penalty!

A little more than one year after passing a bill to enact marriage equality, Maryland has now enacted a law ending the death penalty in the state, becoming the 18th in the country, and more importantly the 6th in 6 years, to do so. Last year, Connecticut ended the death penalty in that blue state (which also has marriage equality).

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the 18 states without the death penalty are:

Alaska (1957) Connecticut** (2012) Hawaii (1957) Illinois (2011) Iowa (1965) Maine (1887) Maryland*** (2013) Massachusetts (1984)

Michigan (1846) Minnesota (1911) New Jersey (2007) New Mexico* (2009) New York (2007)# North Dakota (1973) Rhode Island (1984)^ Vermont (1964)

West Virginia (1965) Wisconsin (1853) ALSO Dist. of Columbia (1981)

It's interesting that 8 of the 10 states that have enacted marriage equality are on this list, with only Washington and New Hampshire missing.

There was a bill to repeal Delaware's death penalty that died in committee recently. DPIC reports that there are seven states that do have the death penalty which have not executed a person within the last 10 years. The federal government, which does have the death penalty, has not executed anyone since March 18, 2003.

Autopsy Report Released In McMillian Murder

The murder of Marco McMillian shocked the conscience when it was reported a few months ago. A 40-year-old Black gay man's body was found floating in a local levee in Clarksdale, Mississippi, naked, burned and bruised. The FBI announced that they are investigating the circumstances of the death to determine whether it is a hate crime or not.

This weekend details from the autopsy report were released which document the horrific nature of the crime. One key detail is that the previously announced suspect Lawrence Reed has apparently confessed to killing McMillian and dumping his body.

The Advocate summarizes:

Clarksdale mayoral hopeful Marco McMillian “died from a lack of oxygen, but exactly what caused that could not be determined,” the Associated Press reports today. The document from state medical examiner Mark LeVaughn was dated Wednesday. 

“Additional autopsy findings that most likely contributed to his death are multiple areas of blunt force trauma to the head that are consistent with a beating,” LeVaughn wrote. He also said suspect Lawrence Reed “admitted to killing” McMillian and leaving his body near a Mississippi River levee. 

McMillian’s body was found February 27, a day after Reed crashed the candidate’s SUV. The medical examiner’s report also notes there were abrasions, lacerations, and burns on McMillian’s body.

 Now that the facts are coming out we shall be interested to follow the trial and see how the criminal justice system resolves this incident.

Maryland Is 18th State To Abolish Death Penalty!

IT'S OFFICIAL!! Maryland House of Delegates has just voted to END the death penalty! The legislation was... fb.me/H2kn2Bq4
— DPFocus (@DPFocus) March 15, 2013

Great news! The Maryland legislature has just completed passage of a bill that will end the death penalty in the state.

By a vote of 82 to 56, the House agreed to replace capital punishment with a sentence of life without parole. It approved the measure a week after the Senate passed the bill.

Governor Martin O'Malley, who has pledged to sign the bill into law, will decide the fate of the five men currently on Maryland's death row.

The bill was O'Malley's second attempt to overturn capital punishment since 2009. When he introduced the legislation in January, he said the death penalty was expensive and did not work.

"Year after year, states which have a death penalty have actually had a higher murder rate than states which do not have a death penalty," he said.

Maryland will become the 18th state in the United States to abolish the death penalty.

Let's Talk About Gun Control!

The New York Times has a great op-ed by Nicholas Krystof today "Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?" where he brings up the topic of sensible gun control in light of the horrific massacre of 20 children under 10 and 7 adults at an elementary school in Newtown, CT on Friday morning.

Here's an important excerpt:

The fundamental reason kids are dying in massacres like this one is not that we have lunatics or criminals — all countries have them — but that we suffer from a political failure to regulate guns. 

Children ages 5 to 14 in America are 13 times as likely to be murdered with guns as children in other industrialized countries, according to David Hemenway, a public health specialist at Harvard who has written an excellent book on gun violence. 

So let’s treat firearms rationally as the center of a public health crisis that claims one life every 20 minutes. The United States realistically isn’t going to ban guns, but we can take steps to reduce the carnage.

and then he goes on to make some concrete suggestions that has improved the situation in other countries:

Other countries offer a road map. In Australia in 1996, a mass killing of 35 people galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns. The “national firearms agreement,” as it was known, led to the buyback of 650,000 guns and to tighter rules for licensing and safe storage of those remaining in public hands. 

The law did not end gun ownership in Australia. It reduced the number of firearms in private hands by one-fifth, and they were the kinds most likely to be used in mass shootings. 

In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings — but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect. The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half. 

Or we can look north to Canada. It now requires a 28-day waiting period to buy a handgun, and it imposes a clever safeguard: gun buyers should have the support of two people vouching for them.

How much longer are people going to let the National Rifle Association prevent reasonable regulations on gun ownership that would help reduce the 30,000 Americans who are killed by these instruments of death every year? Come on, people! Let's talk about gun control.

GRAPHIC: Why CA Should End Death Penalty (And Vote Yes on Prop. 34)

This graphic sums up a lot of the reason why I and millions of other Californians are voting YES ON PROP 34 to end the death penalty in my state.

Poll: Prop 36 (Three Strikes Repeal) Has Huge Lead

One of the major reasons I did not re-register to vote in Virginia even though I have been living and working there since August 2011 and it is a swing state in the presidential election, was my desire to vote on the 11 ballot measures pending before California voters this election. (Another reason was to make sure to vote for my friend Luis Lopez to become my Assemblymember in the 51st District, but that is another matter!)

I turned in my absentee ballot last week. You can see how I voted on all 11 pending ballot propositions.

I am particularly interested in the passage of Propositions 30, 34 and 36. Propositions 30 (which would insure a new revenue of up to $6 billion per year for schools, community colleges and public universities) and Proposition 34 (which would replace the death penalty with life without parole) both seem to be in very tight races with the result in doubt. The latest Los Angeles Times poll indicates that Prop. 34 is at 42% Yes, 45% No (which reflects an increase in support) while Prop. 30 is at 46% yes, 42% No (and reflects a sharp decrease in support).

However, the one bright spot in the latest polling on the Propositions is the huge support for amending the Three Strikes law, with 63% in support and a mere 22% in opposition. This is very exciting, because it would be the first time in years that California has voted to reduce the size of the prison-industrial complex and reject "soft-on-crime" taunts. 

POLL: Prop. 34 (Death Penalty Repeal) Now Ahead

Good news! As a longtime member of Amnesty International, I have long been opposed to the death penalty, viewing it as a barbaric and archaic exercise of state power that discriminates against racial and ethnic minorities and expensively fails to positively address the problem of violent crime. Most "civilized" countries in the world have already abolished the death penalty but large majorities in the United States continue to support the bizarre practice of killing people to send the message that killing people is wrong.

Thus I have been quite pleased to see Proposition 34 qualifiy for the 2012 California ballot and have closely followed its progress of this measure which would replace the death penalty in California with life in prison without parole instead.

Previous polls by The Los Angeles Times from late September shows that Proposition 34 was behind (38% yes, 51% No) but a new poll from the same group shows that support for "justice that works" has surged:

Forty-two percent said they would vote for Proposition 34, with 45% saying no. In September, the gap was 38% to 51%, a 13-point difference. A significant 12% of respondents said they did not know how they would vote, nearly identical to the 11% who had not decided last month. 

[...] 

When voters heard more information about Proposition 34, such as its financial ramifications and details of the effect on prisoners, responses flipped: 45% were in favor and 42% against — still very close to the survey's margin of error, which is 2.9 percentage points. 

[...] 

Proposition 34 would apply retroactively to condemned inmates, require convicted murderers to work in prison and contribute to victim restitution funds, and direct $100 million to law enforcement over four years. It could save the state as much as $130 million a year, according to California's nonpartisan legislative analyst. 

California has more than 727 inmates on death row, the most in the nation. Since the death penalty's reinstatement in 1978, 13 inmates have been put to death and many more have died of old age, other natural causes or suicide. Court rulings have prevented executions for six years. 

Supporters contend that the system is broken and wasteful, with the state spending tens of millions of dollars each year on capital trials and appeals. They argue that DNA-based exonerations across the nation demonstrate that innocent people remain at risk of being executed.

The exciting news about this poll is that it shows movement toward the passage of Proposition 34 even before the yes campaign had started airing its television ads in support of death penalty repeal. The Yes side has far more money than the No side, but the conventional wisdom is that a ballot measure needs to be well-over 50% heading into election day because Undecided's tend to break heavily to the "No" side to maintain the status quo when they are unclear or uncertain about the effect of the initiative's passage would be.

One could make the argument that the ballot measure on the death penalty is different from other issues since most people know where they stand and they know the issues involved (one could make a similar argument regarding ballot measures on marriage equality at this point in time as well).

We shall find out what happens on November 6th! It would be great if the largest state in the Union took a decisive step towards ending the death penalty on that day.

Celebrity Friday: Openly Gay John Noguez in Jail

Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

John Noguez is the only official  that is openly gay who has (ever?) been elected countywide in Los Angeles County, representing a population of nearly 10 million people. He was elected the Los Angeles County Assessor in the November 2010 general election. He is 47 years old and despite being openly gay and elected to multiple offices (city councilman and mayor of Huntington Park) he has been married to a woman since 2001.

Clearly Noguez is a complicated person, but his life grew even more complicated when he was arrested on serious charges of corruption and bribery on October 18th.

This week Noguez failed to make bail and will remain in jail because a judge refused to reduce it from over one million dollars:

"Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez, who has spent the last six days in jail after his arrest on suspicion of taking bribes to lower property tax bills, will stay behind bars a while longer."

"On Monday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Shelly Torrealba refused to reduce Noguez's bail below $1.16 million -- the amount the county allegedly lost in tax revenue due to the scheme, prosecutors claim."

"Noguez's attorney, Michael Proctor, said Noguez would not be able to make that bail. He had asked Torrealba to consider a bail of about $400,000. Torrealba also set bail at $1.16 million for Ramin Salari, a tax consultant accused of bribing Noguez to lower property taxes for his wealthy clients. Salari is expected to put up the money and be released, said his attorney, Mark Werksman."

This case may be more complicated than it seems. The L.A. County Assessor values all property in Los Angeles County, which leads to the amount of property tax that all property owners must pay in the County. Lots of people are willing to say off the record that they think Noguez is a "good guy" and question whether Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley may be over-zealous in prosecuting Noguez. However, there are a lot of facts coming out which do not look good for Noguez. This story should be an interesting one for quite some time to come. The good news is that it doesn't look like Noguez's sexual orientation has played a role in his arrest at all, but you never know when it might come up.

Hat/tip to LGBT POV

Field Poll: CA Death Penalty Repeal Initiative Close

The Field Poll is the most trusted name in California polling. They are currently polling the 11 pending ballot measures which will be decided on election day and releasing the results periodically. Proposition 34 is one that I am following closely, since it would abolish the abhorrent and wasteful practice of the state of California executing its citizens, replacing the death penalty with a less expensive and more humane Life Without Parole system.

The latest Field Poll says that 45% of likely voters oppose Proposition 34 with 42% supporting it. (The margin of error in the poll is ±4.3 points.) This is not a good sign, since the conventional wisdom is that ballot measures typically need to be polling well over 50% in order more than a month before voting happens in order to survive the general bias of voters to reject propositions, especially in the face of an expensive television ad campaign aimed at raising doubts. But Proposition 34 may have a different fate than convention wisdom would indicate because 1) proponents have a huge cash advantage (possibly as high as 10:1) and 2) Most Californians have a pretty fixed view of their opinion about the death penalty and are unlikely to be swayed by a television ad campaign on this matter. In fact, Field goes on to explain in their polling memo on Proposition 34 that it is only very recently that there were pluralities in California that supported life without parole over the death penalty since only recently did people understand how expensive financially the implementation of the death penalty is. It typically takes 25 years from the time a convicted criminal is sentenced to death row that an execution occurs in California. This is due to the fact that every single Capital case must go through the California Supreme Court at some point (and of course there's also the federal court system to consider as well).

By looking at the internals of the polling memo, one good sign is that a majority of Democrats (50%-37%) and Independents (54%-33%) support the measure. (Of course nearly two-thirds of Republicans oppose ending the death penalty since even though Republicans generally hate government, they still think it should have the power to execute its citizens. Go figure!) Since together Democrats and Independents will be a significant majority of the electorate as Republicans are fast becoming an irrelevant party in the state,  Proposition 34  still has a reasonable chance of passing. It's also a pretty good sign that the undecided vote is pretty evenly distributed among the parties.

I'll be giving periodic updates on the state of Proposition 34 as the election gets closer. That and Proposition 36 (which would reform our state's infamous "three-strikes and you're out" law) are two very important measures to rein in the prison-industrial complex in California.