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Capital punishment in California

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Executions in California were carried out in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison. It was modified for the use of lethal injection, but has been returned to its original designated purpose, with the creation of a new chamber specifically for lethal injection.

Capital punishment is a legal form of punishment in the U.S. state of California. The first recorded execution in the area that is now California took place in 1778 when four Native Americans were shot in San Diego County for conspiracy to commit murder.[citation needed] These were the first of 709 executions before the California Supreme Court decision in People v. Anderson finding the death penalty to violate the state constitution, and the later Furman v. Georgia decision of the United States Supreme Court finding executions in general as practiced to violate the United States Constitution, both issued in 1972. Since California reinstated the death penalty in 1978, 13 people have been executed by the state.

In 2006, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel halted executions in California after finding flaws in the state's execution process.[1] The current hold is pending judicial review of a new execution chamber and new methodologies for executing prisoners. However, the moratorium is expected to extend into 2013 because of the current court battle between inmate attorneys and the State's Attorney General. Though prison officials have revised their procedures since 2006, death row inmates allege the procedures are still flawed and expose them to cruel and unusual punishment.

As of 2012, there are 725 offenders (including 19 women) on California's death row.[2][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.

History

File:SanQuentinSP.jpg
San Quentin State Prison, the location of the death row for the execution of male inmates.
Central California Women's Facility, the location of the death row for female inmates.

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

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 sheriff of the county, a physician, the District Attorney of the county, who would 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.

Executions were moved to the state level in 1889 when the law was modified so that hangings would take place in one of the State Prisons—San Quentin State Prison and Folsom State Prison. According to the California Department of Corrections, although there was no law providing which prison was chosen by the trial judge, 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 93 were hanged at Folsom.

1972 suspension of capital punishment

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, sparing them from execution. Following the ruling, the California Constitution was quickly modified to reinstate capital punishment, under an initiative called Proposition 17. The statute was also modified to make 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.

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.

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 modified 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. The 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.[5]

Introduction of lethal injection

The latest change of method came in January 1993, when lethal injection was given as a choice for people sentenced to death. David Mason nonetheless chose to die of lethal gas in August, 1993. This was changed in 1994 to have lethal injection as the default method. The first person executed under these new laws was William Bonin on February 23, 1996. 13 people have been executed since California reinstated the death penalty in 1977, but 56 others have died on death row of other causes, including 14 of suicide since October 25, 2007.[6]

2006 Federal court ordered moratorium on executions and non-partisan studies

Fogel's ruling halted executions in California for nearly 5 years.

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.[7] 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.[8]

Several other 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.[9]

But others who contest this argument says 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.[10]

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice 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.

An exhaustive study released in 2011, found that since 1978 capital punishment has cost California about $4 billion. This report, 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."

Moratorium continues

Old execution room
New execution room
The old execution room at San Quentin State Prison (top), though still functional as a gas chamber, has been supplanted by new facilities designed specifically for lethal injection (bottom).

In addition to the federal case challenging the lethal injection protocol, state proceedings have provided an additional basis for halting executions. In the state case, the issue is whether the execution process complies with the Administrative Procedures Act. In December 2011, Judge Faye D’Opal of Marin County Superior Court ruled that the state had failed to justify the decision to put in place a three-drug lethal injection method, which some experts had said carries a risk of “excruciating pain,” instead of a one-drug method, which one of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s own experts had recommended.

As of May 2012 under the current 1978 law:

  • 57 inmates have died from natural causes
  • 6 inmates have died from "other causes"
  • 20 inmates have committed suicide
  • 13 have been executed in California
  • 1 inmate (Kelvin Shelby Malone) was executed in Missouri[11]

Current legislation

Method

Prisoners sentenced to death are allowed to select lethal injection or asphyxiation.[citation needed]

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 the default is given as lethal injection.

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 provide lethal injection as the default method while the case was 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 particular method of execution an inmate waives his right to challenge that method's constitutionality. This means that lethal gas still theoretically remains an option in California should an inmate opt for it.

As in any other state, people who are under 18 at the time of commission of the capital crime[12] or mentally retarded[13] are constitutionally precluded from being executed.

Capital offenses

The penal code provides for possible capital punishment in:

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 fall from 72% two years previous, and a rise from 63% in 2000. The 2004 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 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 from March 2012 that 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"[18] and an August 2012 poll which found that "support for Prop 34, which would repeal California's death penalty, fell from 45.5% to 35.9%."[19]

Polling as recent as September, 2012 shows 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.[20]

Proposition 34, the SAFE California Act

A coalition of law enforcement officials, murder victims’ family members, and wrongly convicted people has launched an initiative campaign for the “Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act”, or SAFE California, now Prop. 34.[21] If passed by California voters on November 6, 2012, Prop. 34 will 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.[22]

Proponents of Prop. 34 cite the cost of implementing the death penalty as a major motivating factor behind the initiative.[23] A 2011 study by former prosecutor and federal judge Arthur Alarcón indicates that California has spent approximately $4 billion to execute 13 people since the death penalty was reinstated.[24] The Legislative Analyst's Office official analysis of the proposition shows that Prop. 34 will likely save taxpayers over 100 million dollars per year.[25]

Proponents of Prop. 34 also cite the possibility of executing an innocent person as a major motivating factor behind the initiative.[26]

Supporters of Prop. 34 include:

  • The California Democratic Party[27]
  • The California Nurses Association[28]
  • The League of Women Voters of California[29]
  • The California State NAACP[30]
  • All the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in California.[31]
  • All the bishops of the Episcopal Church in California.[32]
  • Jeanne Woodford, the former Warden of San Quentin State Prison who presided over four executions;[33]
  • Gil Garcetti, the former District Attorney of Los Angeles County;[34]
  • Franky Carrillo[35] and Obie Anthony,[36] who were wrongly convicted of murder and spent decades in prison before their exoneration;
  • Deldelp Medina[37] and Aqeela Sherrills,[38] family members of murder victims;
  • Don Heller,[39] the author of the 1978 initiative that expanded the use of the death penalty in California;[40]
  • Ron Briggs,[41] a main proponent of the 1978 initiative that expanded the use of the death penalty in California.[40][42]

On March 1, 2012, the SAFE California Campaign submitted 799,589 signatures to qualify for the election on November 6, 2012.[43] On April 23, 2012 California Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced that the initiative had been approved and would be on the November ballot.[44]

Some Prop. 34 detractors do not believe the studies that indicate that the death penalty in California is more expensive than life in prison without the possibility of parole.[45] Others admit that the system is broken, but hold out hope that it can be fixed, despite the fact that "reform attempts have failed to make it past the California State Legislature."[46] Others point to the irony that SAFE supporters decry the high costs of death penalty appeals (guaranteed under California law as established by the 1978 referendum) while raising concerns about the possibility of executing the innocent.[47] Detractors also believe that there may be safety concerns for other inmates and guards have also been raised due to the requirement that inmates sentenced to death would be required to work if the proposition were to pass.[47]

Executions after 1976

A total of 13 individuals convicted of murder have been executed by the state of 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 person Date of execution Victim(s) Under 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 Slovik, and Annette Lynn Selix
9 Robert Lee Massie[48][49] 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. ^ Williams, Carol J. (July 2, 2011). "Judge who halted California executions gets post in Washington". Los Angeles Times.
  2. ^ California Death Penalty Moratorium Likely To Extend Into 2013 « CBS San Francisco
  3. ^ The Buzz: Supporters of repealing California's death penalty net $1.2 million in contributions - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee
  4. ^ Ballot to abolish California’s death penalty opposed by RivCo officials
  5. ^ Weinstein, Henry (November 20, 2007). "Court urges amendment to speed death penalty reviews". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 1, 2012.
  6. ^ Condemned Inmates Who Have Died Since 1977
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ Death Penalty Moratorium in California
  9. ^ Herron, Aundré M. (April 20, 2008). "Aundré M. Herron: The death penalty is not civilized" (PDF). Sacramento Bee. Retrieved March 31, 2010.
  10. ^ STUDY: COST SAVINGS FROM REPEAL OF DEATH PENALTY MAY BE ELUSIVE
  11. ^ California death row inmate found dead hanging in his cell, CNN, Darrell Calhoun and Michael Martinez, May 30, 2012
  12. ^ Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)
  13. ^ Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002)
  14. ^ California Penal Code § 37
  15. ^ California Penal Code § 128
  16. ^ California Penal Code § 190 and 190.1
  17. ^ California Penal Code § 219
  18. ^ SurveyUSA News Poll #19044, http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportEmail.aspx?g=c0076b43-5a67-415f-9b9f-6da015bf123a
  19. ^ 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.
  20. ^ http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/survey/S_912MBS.pdf
  21. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/home
  22. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/facts/about
  23. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/facts/savings
  24. ^ Williams, Carol J. (June 20, 2011). "Death penalty costs California $184 million a year, study says". Los Angeles Times.
  25. ^ http://vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2012/general/pdf/34-title-summ-analysis.pdf
  26. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/facts/innocence
  27. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/about/other-organizations
  28. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/about/other-organizations
  29. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/about/other-organizations
  30. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/about/other-organizations
  31. ^ http://www.cacatholic.org/index.php/issues2/reverence-for-life/death-penalty/538-prop-34-support
  32. ^ http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2012/10/10/california-bishops-release-statement-supporting-proposition-34/
  33. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/enforcement/woodford
  34. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/enforcement/garcetti
  35. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/innocent/carrillo
  36. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/innocent/obies-story
  37. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/victims/medina
  38. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/victims/sherrills
  39. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/new-voices/heller
  40. ^ a b Nagourney, Adam (April 6, 2012). "Fighting to Repeal California Execution Law They Championed". The New York Times.
  41. ^ http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/new-voices/ron-briggs
  42. ^ Briggs, Ron (February 12, 2012). "California's death penalty law: It simply does not work". Los Angeles Times.
  43. ^ "PolitiCal". Los Angeles Times.
  44. ^ http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/qualified-ballot-measures.htm
  45. ^ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75540_Page2.html
  46. ^ http://www.neontommy.com/news/2012/05/cast-converts-rally-around-death-penalty-repeal
  47. ^ a b http://cadeathpenalty.webs.com/
  48. ^ "Massie Executed For 1979 S.F. Murder / Witnesses see procedure from beginning to end". Sfgate.com. March 27, 2001. Retrieved September 12, 2010.
  49. ^ "Massie on Death Row—On Again, Off Again". Sfgate.com. March 14, 2001. Retrieved September 12, 2010.
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