On Thursday, the high court affirmed a death sentence verdict for Don’te Lamont McDaniel, who was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. Justice Goodwin Liu authored the 77-page opinion affirming the sentence in adherence with precedent, but he also wrote a 30-page concurrence expressing doubts about the case law that allowed juries to consider certain circumstances that would increase the severity of a crime and allow for death penalty sentencing.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2000 landmark decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, which found “any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt,” raises a “serious question” about the constitutionality of the death penalty, according to Liu.
“Our case law has held that the Apprendi rule does not disturb California’s death penalty scheme,” he wrote. “Yet our decisions in this area consist of brief analyses that have largely addressed high court opinions one by one as they have appeared on the books. In my view, we have not fully grappled with the analytical underpinnings of the Apprendi rule and the totality of the high court’s 20-year line of decisions.”
Liu also noted that state high courts in Hawaii, Delaware and Florida have reexamined prior rulings in light of the U.S. Supreme court’s evolving case law. “In sum, the high court’s Apprendi jurisprudence has prompted significant reexamination and reform of capital sentencing schemes in many states,” he said. “Yet California is not among them, and our precedent is in conflict with decisions from other states.”
The justice noted that California’s capital sentencing scheme allows a jury to render a death verdict in certain circumstances that conflict with the Sixth Amendment’s trial rights and requirement that juries find each element of a crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
“There is a world of difference between a unanimous jury finding of an aggravating circumstance and the smorgasbord approach that our capital sentencing scheme allows,” he said. “Given the stakes for capital defendants, the prosecution, and the justice system, I urge this court, as well as other responsible officials sworn to uphold the Constitution, to revisit this issue at an appropriate time.”
University of California, Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and the director of the school’s death penalty clinic filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of Gov. Gavin Newsom. The brief asserted that California’s capital punishment system has always been “infected by racism.”
Six district attorneys, including Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and George Gascón in Los Angeles, also filed an amicus brief in the case seeking reform of death penalty rules.
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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
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde