Column: Why death row doesn’t work and how Charles Manson changed the death penalty

Here’s that wacky California again. We just voted for more guns and ammo regulations, a plastic bag ban, legal marijuana, higher cigarette taxes – and in favor of hurrying up the death penalty? Seem quirky for a blue state? Not so much. Hadar Aviram is a law professor at UC Hastings. She volunteered for the Proposition 62 campaign to end the death penalty altogether in favor of life in prison without parole. That lost to Proposition 66, which pledges to speed up the death penalty in California, which hasn’t executed anyone in 10 years. The ACLU has already challenged 66 in court. Aviram is following her book “Cheap on Crime� with another on the Manson family’s parole hearings, and she thinks the promises of Proposition 66 are impossible to meet.

Find the full archive of "Patt Morrison Asks" podcasts here or search for "Patt Morrison Asks" on iTunes.

To read this week’s column, click here.

Want unlimited digital access to the L.A. Times? Patt Morrison listeners can sign up here for eight free weeks.

MORE PATT MORRISON ASKS

Mike Judge: The election is over, but our idiocracy is here to stay

Why are Julian Assange and Vladimir Putin helping Donald Trump?

Stanford linguistics professor John Rickford on the legacy of Ebonics

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook