Death Penalty News

On January 17, 2006, California exe­cut­ed Clarence Ray Allen — the last per­son put to death by the state. Two decades lat­er, California’s death row pop­u­la­tion has fall­en to 580 pris­on­ers , down from its peak near 750 in the mid-2010s . In the time since Mr. Allen’s exe­cu­tion, the death penal­ty in California has seen sus­tained scruti­ny as con­cerns with racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, inno­cence, and costs con­tin­ue to grow. Governor Gavin Newsom has placed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have been moved to less restric­tive con­di­tions in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, and advo­cates have urged the gov­er­nor to grant mass clemency.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Los Angeles Times recently profiled the experiences of several individuals formerly housed on California’s death row—Bob Williams, Kevin Bernoudy, David Carpenter, and Cathy Sarinana—exploring how their lives have changed following historic policy shifts under Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration. Bob Williams, now 49, spent more than half his life in isolation on San Quentin’s death row. At age 18, he raped and murdered 40-year-old Mary Breck in Kern County in 1994. Just a day earlier, he had broken into her home and stolen credit cards. He claimed he returned to give them back but instead strangled her. Williams was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.

California's San Quentin prison houses the state's only death row for male inmates. Death row for men and women will soon be dismantled. SAN FRANCISCO — California this week pushed ahead with controversial efforts to dismantle the largest death row system in America.

It has been 5 years since California voters approved Proposition 66, a measure that ostensibly was going to speed up the time between handing down a death sentence and an execution. But as a practical matter, nothing has really changed. In fact, it has been 15 years since California last executed someone, leaving us with a Death Row population of nearly 700 people, none of whom face execution in the foreseeable future. So much for the fix that death penalty advocates promised. Here’s a better one: End the death penalty in California once and for all. Of course, there are stronger reasons for getting rid of capital punishment than the slowness of the legal process. The moral arguments align against killing even convicted murderers, and a legal system as imperfect as ours has proved to be should never be used to determine whether someone lives or dies. In fact, the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code finalized a report last month calling for abolition primarily because “th...

California’s death penalty costs taxpayers $150 million a year. The average appeal of a death sentence, when considered by state and federal courts, takes more than 30 years to resolve. Blacks make up 6.5% of the state’s population and 35% of its condemned inmates. Jurors in capital cases are disproportionately white, due in part to a selection process that excludes death penalty opponents. Since enacting its current death penalty laws in 1977 and 1978, California has executed 13 prisoners — none since 2006 — while 156 condemned inmates have died of other causes. Those findings come from the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, established by law last year to recommend changes in the criminal law of a state with the nation’s largest prison system and most populous Death Row. Its latest report calls for repeal of the death penalty, an option California voters considered and narrowly rejected in 2012 and 2016. Capital punishment in California is “imposed so arbitrarily — and in such ...

It has been five years since California voters approved Proposition 66 , a measure that ostensibly was going to speed up the time between handing down a death sentence and an execution. But as a practical matter, nothing has really changed. In fact, it has been 15 years since California last executed someone , leaving us with a Death Row population of nearly 700 people , none of whom face execution in the foreseeable future. So much for the fix that death penalty advocates promised. Here’s a better one: End the death penalty in California once and for all. Of course, there are stronger reasons for getting rid of capital punishment than the slowness of the legal process. The moral arguments align against killing even convicted murderers, and a legal system as imperfect as ours has proved to be should never be used to determine whether someone lives or dies. In fact, the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code finalized a report last month calling for abolition primarily beca...

The Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, created by the California state legislature to review the state’s criminal laws, has issued a report unanimously recommending that the state repeal its death penalty. The six-member committee’s 39-page Death Penalty Report , released November 17, 2021, also offers intermediate recommendations for reducing the size of California’s nearly 700-person death row—the largest of any state in the country. “After a thorough examination, the Committee has determined that the death penalty as created and enforced in California has not and cannot ensure justice and fairness for all Californians,” the report states. “More than forty years of experience have shown that the death penalty is the opposite of a simple and rational scheme. It has become so complicated and costly that it takes decades for cases to be fully resolved and it is imposed so arbitrarily — and in such a discriminatory fashion — that it cannot be called rational, fair, or constitutiona...

One of the first actions Gavin Newsom took as governor was to declare a moratorium on executions in California, which now has 699 inmates on the nation’s largest Death Row. If Newsom is recalled from office Sept. 14, most of his prominent opponents say they plan to reverse that moratorium, though it’s unclear whether they would actually get to oversee any executions. “Californians voted to retain the death penalty. This man came out and he ignored the will of the people,” Larry Elder, the Los Angeles talk show host who has led recent polls of replacement candidates, told an interviewer for the CalMatters news group. He was referring to ballot measures in 2012 and 2016 that would have repealed the state’s death penalty law. “I strongly support the death penalty in California. ... It should never have been changed,” Kevin Faulconer, the former San Diego mayor, told KQED radio in San Francisco. “I’d do what Newsom said he was going to do — respect the will of the voters,” Assembly Member ...

When the story is told about how the death penalty was abolished in California, the work of a little-known legislative committee will deserve an entire chapter. On June 23, after hearing public comments, the six-member Committee on Revision of the Penal Code voted unanimously to approve a staff report with the following enlightened conclusion: “Eliminating the death penalty is a critical step towards creating a fair and equitable justice system for all in California, as the ultimate punishment is plagued by legal, racial, bureaucratic, financial, geographic, and moral problems that have proven intractable.” According to committee chair Michael Romano, the report, which is subject to final editing, will be submitted to the California Senate and Assembly and made available to the public later this summer. “The decision of this important committee and the detailed report it has approved will allow the legislature to take a serious look at our failed system and resolve to put an abolition...

Prosecutors and judges give death penalty decisions despite Governor Newsom’s moratorium The death penalty in California is due to face another hurdle this year following a number of judges and prosecutors respectively giving and asking for the death penalty in recent murder cases. Going against the moratorium On Friday, prosecutors in San Diego County asked for the death penalty against John Earnest, who killed 1 and injured 3 more in a Poway Synagogue shooting.  Before that, in February, a Riverside County prosecutor asked for the death penalty in a Palm Springs quadruple murder case.  And in January a Riverside County judge sentenced a man to death for murdering his mother in Indio. All of these decisions have come after Governor Newsom’s decision last year to put a moratorium on all death penalty cases, putting a temporary hold on the death penalty in the state despite the state not having an execution happen since 2006. “We cannot advance th...

A double murderer whose case became part of California’s renewed debate over capital punishment died Wednesday in a hospital long before his death sentence could be carried out. An autopsy will determine what killed 71-year-old Thomas Potts, but officials said foul play was not suspected. Potts had been sentenced to death by a Kings County jury in 1998 for the murders of Fred and Shirley Jenks in their home. Both victims were in their 70s. The California Supreme Court unanimously upheld the sentence in March. Two of the justices used the case to criticize the death penalty system in the nation’s most populous state as dysfunctional and expensive. It was the first time the high court had considered the death penalty after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on executions as long as he is in office. Associate Justice Goodwin Liu wrote that longstanding problems with the death penalty had not been repaired with Proposition 66, a 2016 ballot measure intended to ...

LOS ANGELES — In Courtroom 106 in downtown Los Angeles, a jury has begun hearing testimony in the long-awaited trial of a man accused of stabbing to death two women in their homes at night. The killer stalked his victims, ingratiating himself as a repairman, and then killed them in a spasm of violence. One victim was nearly decapitated; another’s breasts were slashed off. One of the women, a former girlfriend of the actor Ashton Kutcher, was found in a pool of blood on the stairs. The gruesomeness of the killings and the celebrity connection have earned the suspect the tabloid-style moniker of The Hollywood Ripper. Prosecutors are asking jurors to deliver a death sentence. Nearly 400 miles to the north, in Sacramento, prosecutors have come together to seek a death sentence for Joseph James DeAngelo, the man accused of being the so-called Golden State Killer, who terrorized communities up and down the state in the 1970s and ’80s before an arrest was made last year with the...