Clarence Ray Allen was executed in 2006 at the age of 76 by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison in California. Prisoner execution is still legal 27 states (plus federal and military) including in California. Currently there are 697 prisoners awaiting execution in California[1]. So far this year 5 people have been sentence to death in California, which is up from 3 in 2020[2]. Since Clarence Rey Allen was executed, Californian courts have sentence around 170 prisoners to receive the same fate. The only thing preventing California from executing its prisoners is a handful of powerful individuals (particularly Gavin Newsom) that just so happens to be against this practice. If California were to get a new governor and a judge or two with a laxer moral stance surely state executions would continue.
No our side has far from “won”. We have come close. In 2012 and 2016 popular ballot measures came really close to abolishing the death penalty in California. 7 states (including my home state of Washington) have made state executions illegal in the past decade alone. I think it is only a matter of time before California does the right thing here and abolishes this barbaric practice for good. Sentencing people to death—though infinitely more humane then following through and actually executing people—is still a cruel practice, and California should absolutely stop doing that.
If killing is such a great solution, lets just kill everyone capable of committing a crime. It will definitely lower it.