California to hold vote on abolition of death penalty Five states - Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois and New York - have eliminated it in the last five years. Oregon's governor recently said he would halt all executions during his time in office. The issue will be fiercely debated in California where a poll last year put support for the death penalty in serious cases at 68 per cent. However, the state has not put anyone to death since 2006 when a judge halted executions until a new death chamber was built and lethal injection procedures improved. Since 1976 the state has executed a total of 13 people. In the same time Texas carried out 481 executions. Supporters of repealing the death penalty are arguing their case primarily on cost grounds. They claim it would save the state tens of millions of dollars a year which is spent on maintaining death row and paying for lawyers involved in decade long appeals. The measure is being sponsored by Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin who is now an anti-death penalty advocate. "We certainly did not know that we would spend $4 billion on 13 executions," she said. Our system is broken, expensive and it always will carry the grave risk of a mistake. Jim Nielsen, a Republican State Assemblyman, said repealing it would amount to "spitting in the face of the grieving victims of these vicious heinous atrocious murderers."