District attorneys protest measure that would end death penalty

San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos. (File Photo)San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos was among fellow top prosecutors at the steps of the state Capitol on Tuesday voicing their opposition to a measure that aims to abolish California's death penalty.
The California District Attorneys Association, of which Ramos is past president, is opposed to the SAFE California Act, a November ballot measure that would replace the death penalty with the punishment of life in prison without parole.

The measure to abolish the death penalty official qualified for the November ballot on Monday.

If voters approve, 725 death row inmates would have their sentences converted to the new punishment, which would be the harshest that prosecutors could seek.

In Sacramento, Ramos marched with fellow district attorneys and victims' family members in support of Crime Victims Week, which began on Monday. Opponents say the measure removes justice for victims of death row prisoners.

"It's a horrible idea and I think (supporters of the measure) are manipulating the facts," Ramos said.

"Nobody sitting on California's death row has ever been proven innocent. These people brutally and horrifically murdered citizens of our county. We are careful about who we select for the death penalty and we don't make these decisions lightly ... I can tell you that the people sitting on death row are not only guilty, but they deserve the ultimate punishment."

Supporters of the ballot measure say abolishing the death penalty will save the state millions of dollars through layoffs of prosecutors and defense attorneys who handle death penalty cases.

"Our system is broken, expensive and it always will carry the grave risk of a mistake," said Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin who is now an anti-death penalty advocate and an official supporter of the measure.

If the death penalty were to end, it would affect Inland Empire cases.

In 1986, Redlands was rocked when Corrina Novis, then 20, was murdered after she was abducted near the Redlands Mall on Nov. 7.

Her body was found in a shallow grave in Fontana. Her killers, James Marlow and Cynthia Coffman are now on Death Row - Marlow at San Quentin State Prison and Coffman at Central California Women's Facility.

Novis, a then-insurance clerk at State Farm, had stopped at Cho's Liquors at the corner of Colton Avenue and Orange Street before she was supposed to meet with friends at Gay 90s Pizza Parlor.

Police said Marlow abducted Novis outside of the front entrance of the mall and forced her at gunpoint to withdraw money from her checking account.

Marlow and Coffman then took Novis to a Fontana home where the two used coercion then sodomy to obtain her bank card number.

The pair then took Novis to a vineyard in Fontana when they strangled her before burying her alive.

Days later, the pair robbed and murdered Lynel Murrary, 19, in Huntington Beach on Nov. 12, 1986.

The two were tried in 1987 together with separate attorneys present.

Two years later, Coffman and Marlow were convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping for robbery, burglary and sodomy and sentenced to death.

Chino Hills resident Mary Ann Hughes, the mother of a young murder victim, hopes the measure fails.

"Some people commit such evil crimes, such as the person who killed my son, that the only way people can be free of people like that is through the death penalty," Hughes said.

"That was the sentence they gave him, and for it to be changed now doesn't do justice to my son or to any of the other victims out there."

Death row inmate Kevin Cooper was convicted in 1985 for the June 4, 1983, murders of Hughes, Douglas and Peggy Ryen and their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica. They were brutally slain with a hatchet and knife in the Ryens' home in Chino Hills. An execution date has yet to be set for Cooper or any other current California death row inmates because of concerns that the state's lethal injection method is inhumane, said John Kochis, current lead prosecutor on the Kevin Cooper case and chief deputy district attorney for San Bernardino County.

"The reason that the death penalty is appropriate in Cooper's case is he did terrible things to an innocent family that didn't deserve to die, let alone die the way they died," Kochis said. "His conduct was so terrible that the appropriate punishment for his conduct is the death penalty."

Since California reinstated the death penalty in 1978, the state has executed 13 inmates. A 2009 study conducted by a senior federal judge and law school professor concluded that the state was spending about $184 million a year to maintain its death row and the death penalty system.

The "Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act" is the fifth measure to qualify for the November ballot, the secretary of state announced Monday. Supporters collected more than the 504,760 valid signatures needed to place the measure on the ballot.

If the measure passes, $100 million in purported savings from abolishing the death penalty would be used over three years to investigate unsolved murders and rapes.

Why are mofos still alive if they committed crimes in the 80's, thats whats fucked up...Fuck firing lawyers, well that too, but if these fools are knocked off, thats 50 grand saved per year....not my entire perspective, but why r u still alive 30+ years later...prison industrial complex aint no joke...