If Lonnie David Franklin could vote in November, he would eagerly ink in the "yes" dot next to Proposition 62 and the "no" dot next to Proposition 66.
Franklin is the serial killer known as the "Grim Sleeper." A jury recently convicted him of murdering nine women and a teenage girl between 1985 and 2007; detectives believe he could be responsible for killing 25 or more women.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy
sentenced Franklin to death last week. But his fate really will be decided at the ballot box this November.
Prop. 62 would scrap the death penalty, allowing Franklin and other death row inmates who have killed cops and raped and murdered children to continue receiving three square meals a day while living out their lives in the relative comfort of prison. Prop. 66, by contrast, would preserve the death penalty for the most heinous criminals by enacting critically needed reforms to the system.
In the interests of justice and public safety, it is imperative that each and every one of us do everything we can to pass Prop. 66 and defeat Prop. 62. Defeat simply is not an option, and ALADS urges all of our members to educate the public about the critical importance of this issue.
When we go out and talk to our friends, relatives, neighbors and acquaintances, we can drive home the importance of this vote by making the consequences real. An effective initial pitch would be to cite the Grim Sleeper as an example of someone who would reap the benefits of the wrong outcome in November.
