A look at props dealing with criminal justice reform

There are 17 propositions on the statewide ballot. 

As part of our You Decide 2016 coverage we're breaking down each one of those measures.

Monte Francis took a look at three initiatives dealing with criminal justice reform.

When a teenage boy was accused of killing 8-year-old Madyson Middleton after luring the girl into his Santa Cruz apartment last year, prosecutors decided to charge the 15-year-old with murder and to try him as an adult.

Prop 57 would take that discretion away from prosecutors and place the decision in the hands of a judge. Prop 57 would also allow some inmates serving prison time for crimes defined as "non-violent" to be considered for early release.

The legislature's fiscal analyst says there are 129,000 inmates in the system, with 30,000 serving time for nonviolent crimes. A total of 7,500 of them would be eligible for early release under Prop 57.

Two measures on the statewide ballot focus on the death penalty offering opposing solutions to addressing the state's broken system of capital punishment.

Right now, 748 inmates sit on death row including notorious killers Richard Allen Davis, Scott Peterson and Cary Stayner. But since 1978 the state has carried out just 15 executions. The last in 2006, when Clarence Ray Allen was put to death.

Right now, death row inmates are housed in one of two places - men are at San Quentin and women are housed at a state prison in Chowchilla.  The state spends about 18 times more money to house death row inmates, and Prop 66 aims to save money by allowing condemned inmates to be housed at a number of different prisons across the state.

Prop 66 also aims to speed up the time between a death sentence and an execution. 

By requiring condemned inmates to file appeals within one year of getting an attorney and requiring the appeals to be resolved within five years.

It would also attempt to expand the pool of lawyers who can defend capital cases.

Prop 62 takes a more straight forward approach and would abolish California's death penalty. It would replace it with a maximum punishment of life in prison, without the possibility of parole.