Supporters of capital punishment in California claimed victory after the state Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved measure to speed up death sentences, but they still have to clear a major obstacle before executions can resume: Getting approval for a new lethal injection method.
The next step in that fight is expected on Friday, when state corrections officials say they will seek regulatory approval for a revised drug protocol to execute inmates.
The new regulations would allow California's death row inmates to be executed using 1 of 2 different drugs or choose the gas chamber.
The revised proposal would follow a highly anticipated California Supreme Court ruling on Thursday about Proposition 66, a push to "mend not end" capital punishment in California by tightening rules on court appeals by inmates.
Condemned inmates in California currently languish for decades and are more likely to die of natural causes than from lethal injection. There are nearly 750 inmates on death row, and only 13 have been executed since 1978 - the last in 2006.
Nearly 400 death penalty appeals are pending.
In its ruling, the state Supreme Court unanimously upheld the mandate in Proposition 66 that lower-level courts hear some appeals and reject those that are not filed on time.
It also upheld provisions in the measure limiting successive appeals and filing extensions.
But with 2 of the 7 justices dissenting, the state Supreme Court said a 5-year deadline on appeals by condemned inmates in the measure was advisory, not mandatory - a point that supporters of the measure had conceded during oral arguments.
With the timeline provision limited, it was not clear whether the measure would succeed in accelerating death sentences, said Robert Weisberg, a criminal justice expert at Stanford Law School.
"Various people in the judicial system might say, 'I feel an obligation to move these cases faster,' " he said.
But without a mandate, Weisberg said, others might view the deadline as "meaningless, and therefore nothing may change."
Proposition 66 also ends the requirement that prison officials receive approval from state regulators for their new lethal injection plan. The fight over the drug procedure has been a significant obstacle to resuming the death penalty.
Officials, however, said they would still submit the revised regulations to the state Office of Administrative Law and follow the normal regulatory process until the justices' decision becomes final, which could happen as soon as late next month.
Corrections officials would choose between the powerful barbiturates pentobarbital or thiopental for each execution, depending on which one is available.
They initially proposed using any 1 of 4 drugs, but they dropped two of them after opponents said those drugs had never been used in executions and questioned whether the drugs would be safe and effective.
A federal judge in 2006 ordered changes to the state's lethal injection procedures, but said California could resume executions if it began using a single drug.
The new rules eventually will have to pass the scrutiny of a federal judge before they can be implemented.
Source: Associated Press, August 25, 2017
Death Penalty Backers Celebrate California Supreme Court Decision
He's one of the authors of Proposition 66, the voter-approved measure to speed up executions in California, and Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation is celebrating a new victory.
"We will be seeing a resumption of execution in less than a year," he said.
The California Supreme Court upheld the law he wrote, which was on hold while considering a challenge attempting to overturn it. It was filed by the same opponents behind the competing measure to repeal death penalty.
We interviewed Ron Briggs during his hard fought campaign.
"Eliminate the death penalty... replace it with life without the possibility of parole...throw them in prison for rest of life...throw away the key," said Briggs.
But 51 % of California voters voted to "mend, not end the death penalty," limiting repetitive appeals that keep inmates on death row for decades.
"We can bring things down from 25 down to 10," said Scheidegger
10 years is how long it'll take for death row inmate to be executed.
But Scheidegger says there are about 20 inmates who have already exhausted their appeals, making them ready for executions in less than a year.
"It's immoral. The state should not be killing people," said state Sen. Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco).
Weiner says executions may soon resume, but so will the fight to get rid of capital punishment in California.
"I think we will eventually repeal the death penalty. We came very close last year, and we have to keep trying," he said.
Source: CBS News, August 25, 2017
How justices' ruling shows death penalty law shouldn't be decided by initiative
The California Supreme Court's decision upholding a profoundly flawed 2016 initiative that promises to speed executions made clear how badly the death penalty twists and perverts the criminal justice system.
The justices illustrated once more why complex legal questions should not be decided by initiative. Hot button issue though it is, the death penalty, or at least the law governing it, simply cannot be fully explained in brief campaign spots.
There won't be an execution this year, and perhaps not next year. But the ruling ensures that the death penalty will be an issue in the 2018 race to replace Gov. Jerry Brown.
Unfortunately, voters last November narrowly approved Proposition 66, a measure that supposedly will speed executions, and rejected Proposition 62, which would have abolished capital punishment.
The Sacramento Bee editorial board, which long had supported the death penalty, reversed that stand in 2012, though not out of sympathy for killers. People who commit the most heinous crimes should die in prison.
But capital punishment is unworkable and anachronistic. Executions may provide some solace to the survivors of murder victims, though unnatural deaths of loved ones leave holes that can never be filled. The death penalty is neither an efficient punishment, nor is it the deterrent that some supporters claim it to be. Directly and indirectly, much of that was reflected in the Supreme Court's 5-2 ruling issued Thursday.
Writing for the majority, Justice Carol Corrigan upheld the measure in general but struck down a core part of Proposition 66, the provision requiring that the state Supreme Court decide capital cases within 5 years.
As it is, cases often are not decided for a decade or more, for good reasons. The majority held that the initiative's 5-year standard was aspirational, not a command. A hard deadline "would undermine the court's authority as a separate branch of government."
In a concurring opinion joined by 3 justices, Justice Goodwin Liu underscored the complexities of death cases: Appellate lawyers are hard to find. Once they're retained, lawyers must meticulously pick through trial records that run 5,000 pages or more, plus exhibits. Written briefs in capital cases run 300 to 500 pages and commonly raise 30 or 40 claims. A single case can dominate a lawyer's practice for more than a decade.
"Proposition 66 does not increase the availability of appellate and habeas attorneys, beyond requiring this court to compel certain criminal appellate attorneys to take death penalty appeals against their will," Liu wrote. "It is unclear how effective this strategy will be in light of the shrinking and graying pool of private appellate attorneys."
Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar dissented, writing that the Yes-on-66 claim about the 5-year deadline was an inducement designed to win voter support. It was, he wrote, "a sham." The way to "prevent similar swindles in the future" would be for the court to clearly state why the 5-year rule was wrong and declare the initiative to be unconstitutional.
Although it neutered the 5-year provision, the majority's decision could make executions more likely, in time. About 17 of California's 747 condemned inmates have exhausted all appeals. The decision probably will force the state to streamline approval of drugs used to carry out executions, assuming the state can find lethal drugs. California regulators had been slow-walking approval of lethal drugs, part of the reason there hasn't been an execution in California since 2006.
Even if drugs are found, there's no certainty that executions will ever become routine in California. We hedge by using the words, "could" and "likely," because nothing is certain about capital punishment. No initiative can change that, despite what campaign consultants tell voters.
Judges are extra careful with capital cases, knowing a mistake could result in the execution of an innocent person. The California Supreme Court has upheld 271 death sentences. But federal courts also have a say, and nothing in the initiative or in Thursday's decision will have any impact on federal judges.
Governors have the power to order that executions proceed or to commute death sentences to life in prison. No governor, not even the most law-and-order politician, would relish presiding over multiple executions.
In his 1989 book, "Public Justice, Private Mercy," the late Gov. Pat Brown described his anguish: "It was an awesome, ultimate power over the lives of others that no person or government should have, or crave.
"And looking back over their names and files now, despite the horrible crimes and the catalog of human weaknesses they comprise, I realize that each decision took something out of me that nothing - not family or work or hope for the future - has ever been able to replace."
There won't be an execution this year, and perhaps not next year. But the ruling ensures that the death penalty will be an issue in the 2018 race to replace Gov. Jerry Brown, a moral opponent of capital punishment. All three top Democratic announced candidates for governor, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Treasurer John Chiang, oppose capital punishment.
So does the most well-funded Republican candidate, John Cox. Cox opposes capital punishment because of its cost, and because of his Catholic faith; he also opposes abortion. However, his campaign strategist, Wayne Johnson, told an editorial board member Cox would follow the law.
In November 2016, slightly more than 51 % of the electorate voted for Proposition 66, 292,000 out of the almost 13 million votes cast. Based on that result and, now, a 5-2 high court decision that stretched to uphold this unfortunate, unworkable and unenforceable mandate, California's law will include the death penalty, for now.
Source: Sacramento Bee, Editorial Board, August 25, 2017
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
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