Capital punishment in California

The recently built lethal injection room at San Quentin State Prison which has never been used.

Capital punishment is a legal form of punishment in the U.S. state of California, though executions are currently on hold due to lethal injection litigation.

The first recorded death sentence in the area that is now California took place in 1778 when four Native Americans were sentenced to be shot in the Presidio of San Diego for conspiracy to commit murder.[1][2]

Since this time, 709 executions took place before the California Supreme Court decision in People v. Anderson finding the death penalty to violate the state constitution.

California voters reinstated the death penalty few months later, with Proposition 17 legalizing the death penalty in the state constitution and superseding the Anderson ruling. Since then, hundreds of death sentences have been handed down, but only 13 executions have been carried out, the last one in 2006.

As of 2015, there were 746 offenders on California's death row.[3] Of those, 126 involved torture before murder, 173 killed children, and 44 murdered police officers.[4]

Because California's death penalty was enacted through the voter-initiative process, the only way to replace it is through a voter-approved ballot measure. In 2012, Proposition 34, which would have replaced the death penalty with life imprisonment, was defeated with 52% of the vote against and 48% for.

History

The first known death sentence in California was recorded in 1778. On April 6, 1778 four Kumeyaay chiefs from a Mission San Diego area ranchería, were convicted of conspiring to kill Christians and were sentenced to death by José Francisco Ortega, Commandant of the Presidio of San Diego; the four were to be shot on April 11.[1] However, there is some doubt as to whether or not the executions actually took place.[2]

Four methods have been used historically for executions. Until slightly before California was admitted into the Union, executions were carried out by firing squad. Upon admission, the state adopted hanging as the method of choice.[5]

The penal code was modified on February 14, 1872, to state that hangings were to take place inside the confines of the county jail or other private places. The only people allowed to be present were the county sheriff, a physician, and the county District Attorney, who would in addition select at least 12 "reputable citizens". No more than two "ministers of the gospel" and no more than five people selected by the condemned could also be present.[5]

Executions were moved to the state level in 1889 when the law was updated so that hangings would occur in one of the State Prisons—San Quentin State Prison and Folsom State Prison. According to the California Department of Corrections, although the law did not require the trial judge to choose a specific prison, it was customary for recidivists to be sent to Folsom. Under these new laws, the first execution at San Quentin was Jose Gabriel on March 3, 1893, for murder. The first hanging at Folsom was Chin Hane, also for murder, on December 13, 1895. A total of 215 inmates were hanged at San Quentin and a total of 92 were hanged at Folsom.[5]

In previous eras the California Institution for Women housed the death row for women.[6]

1972 suspension of capital punishment

San Quentin State Prison, the location of the death row for male inmates and the execution site.
Central California Women's Facility, the location of the death row for female inmates.

On April 24, 1972, the Supreme Court of California ruled in People v. Anderson that the current death penalty laws were unconstitutional and oversaw the commuting of 107 death sentences in the state in 1972, which in turn affected high-profile cases such as Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson, relieving them from execution. Following the ruling, the California Constitution was immediately modified to reinstate capital punishment, under an initiative called Proposition 17. In 1973 a new statute was subsequently enacted, making the death penalty mandatory for a number of crimes including first degree murder in specific instances, kidnapping where a person dies, train wrecking where a person dies, treason against the state, and assault by a life prisoner if the victim dies within a year.[5]

The debate over capital punishment was played out in a somewhat similar fashion on the national level. On June 29, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Furman v. Georgia, holding all capital punishment statutes then in effect in the United States to be unconstitutional. On July 2, 1976, the Supreme Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, reviewing capital punishment laws enacted in response to its Furman decision, found constitutional those statutes that allowed a jury to impose the death penalty after consideration of both aggravating and mitigating circumstances. On the same date, the Court held that statutes imposing a mandatory death penalty were unconstitutional.[7]

In a later decision in 1976, the Supreme Court of California again held the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional as it did not allow the defendant to enter mitigating evidence. A further 70 prisoners had their sentences commuted following this. The next year, the statute was updated to deal with these issues. Life imprisonment without possibility of parole was also added as a punishment for capital offenses. A later change to the statute was in 1978 after Proposition 7 passed. This gave an automatic appeal to the Supreme Court of California, which would directly affirm or reverse the sentence and conviction without going through an intermediate appeal to the California Courts of Appeal.

In 1983, The State Bar of California created The California Appellate Project as a legal resource center to implement the constitutional right to counsel for indigent persons facing execution.[8] At around the time of its founding, Michael Millman became the director of CAP. Millman served as director of CAP for 30 years.[9] CAP oversees the efforts to assist private lawyers representing the more than 700 people on California’s death row.[9]

1986 retention elections

On November 4, 1986, three members of the state supreme court were ousted from office by voters after a high-profile campaign that cited their categorical opposition to the death penalty.[10]

This inclued chief justice Rose Bird, who was removed by a margin of 67 to 33 percent. She reviewed a total of 64 capital cases appealed to the court, in each instance she issued a decision overturning the death penalty that had been imposed at trial. She was joined in her decision to overturn by at least three other members of the court in 61 of those cases.[11] This led Bird's critics to claim that she was substituting her own opinions and ideas for the laws and precedents upon which judicial decisions are supposed to be made.[12]

Resumption of executions and introduction of lethal injection

Robert Alton Harris later became the subject of a Dutch documentary.

In April 21, 1992 the state carried out his first execution since 1967 by putting to death Robert Alton Harris for the murders of two teenage boys in San Diego. A series of four stays of execution issued by the 9th circuit appeal court delayed the execution, causing the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene to vacate the stays and prohibit all others federal courts from any further intervention, ruling that the lower court decisions caused "abusive delays" and were "attempts to manipulate the judicial process".[13]

The latest change of method was introduced in January 1993, when lethal injection was offered as a choice for people sentenced to death. David Mason however chose to die from lethal gas in August 1993, just seven months after lethal injection was introduced. This was replaced with lethal injection as the standard method in 1994. William Bonin was the first person to be executed by these new laws on February 23, 1996. Thirteen people have been executed in California since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, though 56 other people have died on death row from other causes (14 of them from suicide) as of October 25, 2007.[14]

Beginning of lethal injection litigation in 2006

During the term of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, the state carried out two prominent executions in less than five weeks, with Stanley Tookie Williams in December 2005 and Clarence Ray Allen in January 2006.

A month later, in February 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy D. Fogel blocked the execution of convicted murderer Michael Morales because of complaints about the administration of lethal injection in the gas chamber.[15] It was argued that if the three-drug lethal injection procedure were administered incorrectly, it could lead to suffering for the condemned, potentially constituting cruel and unusual punishment. The issue arose from an injunction made by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which held that an execution could only be carried out by a medical technician legally authorized to administer intravenous medications. The case led to a de facto moratorium of capital punishment in California as the state was unable to obtain the services of a licensed medical professional to carry out the execution.[16]

Studies

The state supreme court proposed in 2007 that the state adopt a constitutional amendment allowing the assignment of capital appeals to the courts of appeal to alleviate the backlog of such cases.[17]

Several victims' families testified to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice in opposition to capital punishment, explaining that whilst they had suffered great losses, they did not view retribution as morally acceptable, and that the high cost of capital punishment was preventing the solving of cold cases.[18]

But others who contest this argument said the greater cost of trials where the prosecution does seek the death penalty is offset by the savings from avoiding trial altogether in cases where the defendant pleads guilty to avoid the death penalty.[19]

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice[20] in 2008 concluded after an extensive review that under the current death penalty system, death sentences are unlikely ever to be carried out (with extremely rare exceptions) because of a process “plagued with excessive delay” in the appointment of post-conviction counsel and a “severe backlog” in the California Supreme Court's review of death judgments. According to CCFAJ's report, the lapse of time from sentence of death to execution constitutes the longest delay of any death penalty state.

Another study released in 2011 found that since 1978 capital punishment has cost California about $4 billion. A 2011 article by Arthur Alarcon, long-time judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, and law professor Paula Mitchell, concluded that "since reinstating the death penalty in 1978, California taxpayers have spent roughly $4 billion to fund a dysfunctional death penalty system that has carried out no more than 13 executions."[21]

July 2014 and November 2015 federal decisions

On July 16, 2014, federal judge Cormac J. Carney of the United States District Court ruled that California's death penalty system is unconstitutional because it is arbitrary and plagued with delay. The state has not executed a prisoner since 2006. The judge stated that the current system violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment by imposing a sentence that “no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death.”

However, on November 12, 2015, a panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court's ruling in a 3-0, published decision. The reversal was not on the merits. Two judges held that the matter raised was novel, and so barred under the nonretroactivity doctrine of Teague. The third judge held that the claim must first be raised in the state court.[22][23]

2015 state lawsuit

In February 2015, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Shellyanne Chang ruled that state law compelled the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to develop a way to execute inmates by lethal injection.[24] Later that year a new protocol providing a single-drug execution method was developed to comply with the ruling.[25]

This was the result of a lawsuit brought by family members of murder victims. Supporters of capital punishment blamed the nearly three-year wait for a new protocol on "lack of political will"[24] and attempt to render the death penalty "impractical and then argue for repeal on the grounds of practicality".[25]

Current legislation

Method

Prisoners sentenced to death are allowed to select lethal injection or exposure to lethal gas.

Under the California Penal Code § 3604 (a):

The punishment of death shall be inflicted by the administration of a lethal gas or by an intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death, by standards established under the direction of the Department of Corrections.

Pursuant to subsection (b) of that Code section, if the prisoner does not make a decision on the method within 10 days after the warden's service upon the inmate of an execution warrant, then lethal injection is automatically chosen.

In October 1994, a United States federal judge ruled that the gas chamber was an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment in Fierro v. Gomez, 865 F.Supp. 1387 (N.D. Cal. 1994), and this was upheld by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in February 1996, Fierro v. Gomez, 77 F.3d 301 (9th Cir. 1996). The Supreme Court of the United States never ruled on the case, however, as California amended its statute to include lethal injection as the default method while the case was still pending on appeal. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, did subsequently hold in Stewart v. LaGrand, 526 U.S. 115 (1999) that by selecting a specific method of execution an inmate waives his right to challenge that method's constitutionality. This means that lethal gas still theoretically remains optional in California if an inmate should opt for it.

As in any other state, people who are under 18 at the time of commission of the capital crime[26] or mentally retarded[27] are constitutionally excluded from being executed.

Capital offenses

The penal code provides for possible capital punishment in:

Death row and execution chamber

Men condemned to death in California (with some exceptions) must be held at San Quentin State Prison, while condemned women are held at Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla. San Quentin also houses the state execution chamber.[32] Women executed in California would be transported to San Quentin by bus before being put to death.[33]

As of 2015, 708 male death row inmates were held at San Quentin. There were 23 male California death row inmates in medical facilities, other state prisons, and in correctional facilities in proximity to their court hearings. As of that year there were 20 female death row inmates at CCWF.[34]

Public opinion

The Field Research Corporation found in February 2004 that when asked how they personally felt about capital punishment, 68% supported it and 31% opposed it (6% offered no opinion). This was a decrease from 72% support two years previous, and an increase from 63% in 2000. This poll was asked about the time that Kevin Cooper had his execution stayed hours before his scheduled death after 20 years on Death Row. When asked if they thought the death penalty was generally fair and free of error in California, 58% agreed and 32% disagreed (11% offered no opinion). When the results were broken down along ethnicity, of the people who identified themselves as African American, 57% disagreed that the death penalty was fair and free of error.

A poll in March 2012 found that "61% of registered voters from the state of California say they would vote to keep the death penalty, should a death penalty initiative appear on the November 2012 ballot"[35] An August 2012 poll found that "support for Prop 34, which would repeal California's death penalty, fell from 45.5% to 35.9%."[36]

A PPIC poll from September 2012 showed that 55% of all adults and 50% of likely voters prefer life in prison without the possibility of parole over the death penalty when given the choice.[37]

A Field Poll in September 2014 showed that 56% support the death penalty, down from 69% three years ago. Support for the death penalty in California had not been at this low a level since the mid-1960s.[38]

Proposition 34, the SAFE California Act

A coalition of death penalty opponents including law enforcement officials, murder victims' family members, and wrongly convicted people launched an initiative campaign for the "Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act," or SAFE California, in the 2011-2012 election cycle.[39] The measure, which became Proposition 34, would replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, require people sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole to work in order to pay restitution to victims' families, and allocate approximately $30 million per year for three years to police departments for the purpose of solving open murder and rape cases.[40]

The proposition was defeated with 52% against and 48% in favor,[41] despite supporters of the initiative having spent 6 times more money in the campaign than opponents.[42]

Comments by Chief Justices of the California Supreme Court

The current Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, a Republican appointee and former prosecutor, when questioned about the death penalty during an interview, stated: "I don't think it is working.... It's not effective. We know that."[43] Her predecessor, former Chief Justice Ronald George, also a Republican appointee, characterized the system of death penalty appeals in California as "dysfunctional."[44]

Executions after 1976

The following 13 people convicted of murder have been executed in California following the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Gregg v. Georgia. The first two executions were by gas chamber; all subsequent executions were by lethal injection.

Executed offender Date of execution Victim(s) Governor
1 Robert Alton Harris April 21, 1992 John Mayeski and Michael Baker Wilson
2 David Edwin Mason August 24, 1993 Joan Picard, Arthur Jennings, Boyd Johnson, Antionette Brown, and Dorothy Land
3 William George Bonin February 23, 1996 Marcus Grabs, Donald Hyden, David Murillo, Dennis Frank Fox, Charles Miranda, James McCabe, Ronald Gatlin, Harry Todd Turner, Russell Rugh, Glenn Barker, Steven Wood, Darin Lee Kendrick, Lawrence Sharp, and Steven Jay Wells
4 Keith Daniel Williams May 31, 1996 Lourdes Meza, Miguel Vargas, and Salvador Vargas
5 Thomas Martin Thompson July 14, 1998 Ginger Fleischli
6 Jaturun Siripongs February 9, 1999 Packovan Wattanporn and Quach Nguyen Davis
7 Manuel Pina Babbitt May 4, 1999 Leah Schendel
8 Darrell Keith Rich March 15, 2000 Annette Fay Edwards, Patricia Ann Moore, Linda Diane Slavik, and Annette Lynn Selix
9 Robert Lee Massie March 27, 2001 Boris G. Naumoff
10 Stephen Wayne Anderson January 29, 2002 Elizabeth Lyman
11 Donald Jay Beardslee January 19, 2005 Stacey Benjamin and Patty Geddling Schwarzenegger
12 Stanley Tookie Williams December 13, 2005 Albert Owens, Yen-Yi Yang, Tsai-Shai Lin, and Yee-Chen Lin
13 Clarence Ray Allen January 17, 2006 Bryon Schletewitz, Josephine Rocha, and Douglas White

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Ruscin, p. 196; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 316
  2. 1 2 Engelhardt 1920, pp. 96–97: Reference is made to three letters written by Father Serra to Father Lasuén dated April 22 and June 10, 1778 and September 28, 1779 wherein Father Serra expresses his satisfaction over Governor Felipe de Neve's apparent grants of clemency in this regard. Based on these writings, Engelhardt concludes "It would seem that the sentence of death was commuted. At any rate, there are no particulars as to an execution."
  3. ↑ Facts About The Death Penalty
  4. ↑ Ballot to abolish California’s death penalty opposed by RivCo officials
  5. 1 2 3 4 "The History of Capital Punishment in California". California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Retrieved 2016-02-21.
  6. ↑ "Court Ruling Won't Mean Bloodbath On Death Row." Associated Press at the Tuscaloosa News. Tuesday February 15, 1972. p. 10. Retrieved on Google News (6/15) on March 27, 2013. "There are five women under a sentence of death. Three of Manson's convicted accomplices, Susan Atkins, Leslie Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkel, are in a special women's section of the row built at the California Institute for Women at Frontera."
  7. ↑ Ross, Lee; Ellsworth, Pheobe (January 1983). "Public opinion and capital punishment: a close examination of the views of abolitionists and retentionists". 29 (1) (0011-1287). US: Sage Publications: 116–169.
  8. ↑ "About CAPSF". capsf.org. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
  9. 1 2 "Supreme Court Marks Passing of Michael Millman". courts.ca.gov. California Supreme Court. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
  10. ↑ Lindsey, Robert. "Deukmejian and Cranston Win As 3 Judges Are Ousted." New York Times, 6 November 1986, sec. A, p. 30.
  11. ↑ Purdum, Todd S. (December 6, 1999). "Rose Bird, Once California's Chief Justice, Is Dead at 63". The New York Times. sec. B, p. 18. Retrieved July 18, 2010.
  12. ↑ "Rose Bird Deserved To Be Removed". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
  13. ↑ "Harris executed at San Quentin (The Union Democrat)". google.com. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
  14. ↑ Condemned Inmates Who Have Died Since 1977
  15. ↑ Williams, Carol J. (September 22, 2010). "Clock is ticking on first execution at San Quentin's revamped death chamber". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 26, 2010.
  16. ↑ Death Penalty Moratorium in California
  17. ↑ Weinstein, Henry (November 20, 2007). "Court urges amendment to speed death penalty reviews". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 1, 2012.
  18. ↑ Herron, Aundré M. (April 20, 2008). "The death penalty is not civilized". Sacramento Bee. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
  19. ↑ STUDY: COST SAVINGS FROM REPEAL OF DEATH PENALTY MAY BE ELUSIVE
  20. ↑ http://www.ccfaj.org/
  21. ↑ "Alarcon law review" (PDF).
  22. ↑ "Challenge to Calif. Death Penalty Scheme Fails". www.bna.com. Retrieved 2015-11-20.
  23. ↑ "Federal Appeals Court Reverses Ruling That Ended California's Death Penalty". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2015-11-20.
  24. 1 2 "Judge says families can push state to devise execution protocol". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
  25. 1 2 "California death penalty: New execution method under scrutiny". Mercury News. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
  26. ↑ Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)
  27. ↑ Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002)
  28. ↑ California Penal Code § 37
  29. ↑ California Penal Code § 128
  30. ↑ California Penal Code § 190 and 190.1
  31. ↑ California Penal Code § 219
  32. ↑ Legislative Counsel of California. Penal Code section 3600-3607. Accessed January 13, 2009. "The judgment of death shall be executed within the walls of the California State Prison at San Quentin." and "Upon the affirmance of her appeal, the female person sentenced to death shall thereafter be delivered to the warden of the California state prison designated by the department for the execution of the death penalty,[...]"
  33. ↑ Corwin, Miles. "Death's Door : State's Only Condemned Woman Awaits Her Fate." Los Angeles Times. April 19, 1992. Retrieved on March 22, 2016.
  34. ↑ St. John, Paige. "California's death row, with no executions in sight, runs out of room ." Los Angeles Times. March 30, 2015. Retrieved on March 22, 2016.
  35. ↑ SurveyUSA News Poll #19044, http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportEmail.aspx?g=c0076b43-5a67-415f-9b9f-6da015bf123a
  36. ↑ California Business Roundtable and Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, http://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/news-events/news/2012/08/02-cbrt-spp-release-statewide-initiative-survey-results.htm.
  37. ↑ http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_912MBS.pdf
  38. ↑ Chokshi, Niraj. "Support for the death penalty in California hits a five-decade low". Washington Times. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
  39. ↑ http://www.safecalifornia.org/home
  40. ↑ http://www.safecalifornia.org/facts/about
  41. ↑ "Smartvoter.org".
  42. ↑ "California Death Penalty Ban Rejected By Voters". Mercury News. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
  43. ↑ "L.A. Times interview".
  44. ↑ "L.A. Times Interview".

External links

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