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five years to be re- invested in public safety measures like law enforcement and education. There are three ways to accomplish this addressed in this resolution: 1. Governor Brown should convert all existing death sentences to Life Without Parole The governor has the authority to convert death sentences to the alternative of Life Without Parole, saving $1 billion over five years. This will allow the more than 700 existing death row inmates to be re- housed in the general population, eliminating the additional housing costs associated with death row and the cost of prosecuting and defending death row appeals. Three states have enacted this reform in the past to ensure that innocent men and women sentenced to death will not be executed and to save funds spent on maintaining death row. Life Without Parole is a real solution that ensures public safety and effectively punishes horrible crimes. It also allows inmates to work and pay restitution to the Victims' Compensation Fund. Recent polling from David Binder Research indicates that 64% of likely voters in California support this reform as a budgetary measure. 2. County District Attorneys should reduce or end the practice of seeking death sentences According to Judge Alarcon and Prof. Mitchell's study, each prosecution seeking death costs the county approximately $1 million more than a prosecution seeking Life Without Parole. The decision to seek the death penalty over the alternative of Life Without Parole falls to each county's District Attorney. According to the ACLU's 2009 report "Death in Decline '09," most counties in the state currently do not seek the death penalty, or do so very rarely, due to the excessive costs of such prosecutions. However, a small number of counties continue to seek the death penalty, at great expense to the cities within the county and the taxpayers of the state at large. When the county district attorney decides to seek the death penalty, even-one within the county is impacted as the entire county criminal justice system strains to accommodate the massive expenditures associated with a death penalty trial. Justice is slowed for everyone. The ACLU's 2011 report, "The Death Penalty is Dead," showed a dramatic decrease in the number of death sentences in California in the first half of 2011, leaving the state on track to sentence the fewest men and women to death since 1978. Los Angeles County, historically the state's leader in death sentences, also saw a substantial decline in the first half of 2011. This trend should be encouraged and all County District Attorneys should be called upon to reduce or eliminate the practice of seeking the death penalty. 3. The California Legislature should pass SB 490 and give voters the option to replace the death penalty on the November 2012 ballot SB 490 is currently under consideration by the California legislature. If passed, voters will be given the option of replacing the death penalty with Life Without Parole, saving $1 billion over five years. California voters have not had an opportunity to vote on maintaining the death penalty since 1978, and have never been made aware of the costs associated with the system. Don Heller, the author of the 1978 initiative to reinstate California's death penalty, now supports its replacement because of the death penalty's costly failure over the last 30 years. Numerous attempts to streamline, speed up, and reduce waste within the death penalty have been made, but all have failed and often result in increasing the cost of the system. Voters should be given a chance to make an educated decision about whether the death penalty is worth $184 million each year, or if there are more productive ways to invest those funds. » » » »» RESOLUTION REFERRED TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY 6. RESOLUTION IN HONOR OF THE CITY OF BELL Source Council Member Tony Cardenas, City of Los Angeles Referred To : General Assemblv 16