<P> A coalition of death penalty opponents including law enforcement officials, murder victims' family members, and wrongly convicted people launched an initiative campaign for the "Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act," or SAFE California, in the 2011 - 2012 election cycle . The measure, which became Proposition 34, would replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, require people sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole to work in order to pay restitution to victims' families, and allocate approximately $30 million per year for three years to police departments for the purpose of solving open murder and rape cases . Supporters of the measure raised $6.5 million, dwarfing the $1 million raised by opponents of Proposition 34 . </P> <P> The proposition was defeated with 52% against and 48% in favor . </P> <P> On July 16, 2014, federal judge Cormac J. Carney of the United States District Court ruled that California's death penalty system is unconstitutional because it is arbitrary and plagued with delay . The state has not executed a prisoner since 2006 . The judge stated that the current system violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment by imposing a sentence that "no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death ." </P> <P> However, on November 12, 2015, a panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court's ruling in a 3 - 0 published decision . The three judges held that the claim was not justiciable under federal habeas corpus . </P>

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