CALIFORNIA, USA. DEMOCRATS SEEK DEATH PENALTY MORATORIUM

a group of Assembly Democrats has announced a plan to seek a moratorium on capitol punishment in California, citing the possibility of executing innocent people.
Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, said on June 14 he would introduce a bill next year to halt executions until January 2009. That's about a year after a report is due from an expert panel established by the state Senate to examine how capital punishment is applied in the state.
Koretz said California stands ''at grave risk of executing an innocent person'' unless it first examines a range of issues associated with the death penalty. The debate over capital punishment has in recent years been infused with accusations of uneven implementation and has been stoked by DNA evidence testing, which has exonerated several convicts in various cases across the country.
''We can't take the risk that we're going to get it wrong again and send an innocent person to their death,'' Koretz said. ''Time is of the essence.''
Koretz was joined by Assembly co-authors Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, and Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. Since 1973, 119 people in 25 US states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence.