The 2012 California death-penalty abolition ballot initiative brought repeal close to a popular vote in a state, but it failed by only a couple of percentage points. Its near success marked a striking contrast with the measure’s defeat: just a few years earlier, such a referendum would have seemed unimaginable.

Background and Campaign

The initiative emerged amid signs of a broader shift in criminal-justice policy. For the first time in nearly forty years, the United States prison population did not increase in 2011; in 2012, it declined for the first time in decades. Bryan Stevenson spent much of that year in California supporting ballot initiatives, placing the effort to abolish capital punishment within a period of growing public willingness to reconsider punitive policies.

Vote and Outcome

California voters came close to ending the death penalty, but the abolition initiative lost by only a couple of percentage points. The narrow margin distinguished it from another reform campaign that year: voters approved an end to the state’s three-strikes law for nonviolent offenders by a huge margin, with majority support in every county. The two results showed both the reach and the limits of the moment’s appetite for change.

Significance

Although abolition did not prevail, bringing the question so close to success through a statewide referendum was itself a significant change in the political landscape. Stevenson regarded the near-vote as something that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years earlier. The result therefore registered not a completed abolition, but a newly visible possibility: opposition to the death penalty had become strong enough to approach a statewide majority.