Californians asked to end death penalty to save money

SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON, California (Reuters) - Convicted murderer Douglas Stankewitz, who has spent more than three decades on death row, isn't pinning his hopes of survival on a referendum next month to abolish the death penalty in California - he knows that even if voters reject the measure, he may never be executed.

"They can't kill me because the system is messed up so bad," Stankewitz, California's longest-serving death row inmate, told Reuters in an interview at San Quentin State Prison. "The death penalty is a joke."