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3 Ex-California Governors To Push State's Death Penalty Reform

LOS ANGELES — Three former California governors will back a proposed ballot initiative designed to speed up the state's lengthy death penalty process.

Former Governors George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis plan to announce the start of signature-gathering efforts for a ballot measure at a mid-morning Thursday news conference in Los Angeles.

On a 2012 ballot, 53 percent of California voters rejected an initiative that would have repealed the death penalty.

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Nonetheless, executions have been halted since 2006 because of lawsuits in federal and state courts over the three-drug lethal-injection method that had been used to carry out death sentences.

There are more than 700 prisoners on California's death row.