It is a Matter of Innocence, Not Economics Please DON'T vote in favor of "The SAFE California Act" to end the State's

death penalty. You need to know that your vote for this act would throw away the key for all the innocent men and women on death row, and instead, sentence all prisoners on death

row to spend the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole and without
effective legal representation. The way i see it is, behind the scenes, the "Act" has been to cast Jeannie Woodford, former prison guard, former San Quentin warden, former Director of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations, and current Director of Death Penalty Focus, an organization striving to abolish the death penalty, to build support for this 'Act' from, among others, the prison guards union.

I am not the first to say how deeply troubling it is to see this initiative being advocated
for by a woman who presided over state executions without ever offering an OPEN apology. There is something even more troubling about depending on a flawed prison system and it's employees to go ahead and make this decision, when the men and women at risk have never been asked for our two cents about matters that affect our life and
death.

Despite what I have been told, I believe this "SAFE California Act" will remove the statutory appeals guaranteed under the present law. This new law will assume that all those on death row are uniformly guilty. Don't I matter? What about the innocent men i and women presently on death row, these same men and women who will no longer have the effective legal means to a genuine appeal? If having effective legal representation has anything to do with the State's money crunch, then, make no mistake, innocent human beings will die in prison. If California really wants to save the State money, here's an idea: Why not eliminate the "vengeance sentencing" of the 3 Strikes Law. Eliminating 3 Strikes would close prisons and save million of dollars every year.

Those supporting the SAFE California Act on economic grounds, that eliminating the
death penalty will save money for a cash-strapped State, I have never heard them mention the moral and ethical issues of putting a fellow human being to death. You would not be casting a real vote to answer the prayers of prisoners by ending capital punishment. Let us first be human beings.

No! For my self and others here on San Quentin's death row, the way we will eliminate the death penalty is to look at what other states have done, and by working to provide more effective legal representation to show and prove there are more and more
innocent men and women on death row.

it is a fact that, again and again, the greater public and it's legislators have changed their opinions about the death penalty after discovering innocent people who were condemned to death. Why not start proving the cases of innocent people and free them to tell their truths, tell of their years of horror, and then let the State decide: Do you morally want to have a legal system that will put to death human beings, even the innocent ones? Jarvis Jay Masters San Quentin's Death Row, California

Jarvis Jay Masters has been incarcerated for 32 years, and is a published writer and author of two books.