Plan to Kill Death Row Dies in Committee

 A legislative committee has shelved consideration of a bill that would have asked voters to close
 California's death row and replace capital punishment with life prison terms.
        State Sen. Loni Hancock says she is disappointed. But she couldn't find the nine votes she needed to get SB490 out of the 17-member Assembly Appropriations Committee on Thursday.
        The Democrat from Berkeley promised to keep lobbying lawmakers to pass her bill next year.
        The lawmakers' decision came as Gov. Jerry Brown voiced support for putting ``deep, troublesome issues'' like capital punishment to a vote of the people.
        Hancock's legislation was partly based on a recent study that found California has spent $184 million a year on death penalty cases and incarceration, yet very few condemned inmates are put to
 death.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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