Dysfunctional & close to collapse
The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice today issued its long awaited report on the state of California’s deth penalty. It found California’s administration of the death penalty is “dysfunctional” and “close to collapse.”
Among the panel’s findings:
* After sentences of death, cases are automatically appealed to the California Supreme Court, which upholds the sentence 90% of the time, compared with an approval rate of 73.7% in 14 other death penalty states from 1992 to 2002. Since 1978, 70% of the cases upheld by the state and then appealed to federal courts have been overturned.
* A 1978 voter initiative that helped make 87% of first-degree murders subject to the death penalty dramatically increased the number of death sentences in the state. In the year before passage of the so-called Briggs Initiative, seven people were sentenced to death. By 2000, death sentences were averaging 32 a year. They have since leveled off to about 20 a year.
* California’s death row inmates whose sentences or verdicts were later overturned waited an average of 16.75 years for their reprieves.
* 79 death row inmates have not obtained lawyers to handle their first appeals, which are by law automatic, and 291 inmates lack lawyers to bring constitutional challenges based on facts that the trial courts did not hear. It takes inmates an average of 12 years to obtain a state high court ruling on their first appeals.
* The California Supreme Court has such a backlog that only one appeal from a conviction after 1997 has been resolved.
* California does not meet the federal standard for paying private lawyers to handle death cases, and the state’s method of paying these attorneys — sometimes with flat-fee contracts — violates American Bar Assn. standards.
* Since the death penalty’s restoration in 1978, 38 death row inmates have died of natural causes, 14 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed and 98 have left death row because their convictions or sentences were overturned.
Monday, 30. June 2008 20:34
Well, if they can solve the Admin Procedures issue and get Fogel off his duff, they can get 5 or 6 in 2009.
By the way, Alabama just set a date. Karl, do you still think that post-Baze these lethal injection claims are going to seriously hamper the death penalty?
Monday, 30. June 2008 21:17
The answer is they are. The difference is geography. Outside of the CSA + Oklahoma (the so-called death belt) you aren’t seeing new dates.
Monday, 30. June 2008 22:57
I don’t see how you can really make that argument:
First, we are less than 3 months after the decision in Baze. Delaware, the feds, NC, Tennessee, California and Ohio are being held up by pre-Baze litigation (of course, Ohio also has that hack’s, er judge’s ruling on the protocol as well). I suspect the shelf life for Tennessee and Delaware will not be all that much.
Second, we have 11 serious execution dates set for July. You can expect a bunch more dates from Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Alabama. (Missouri and Arkansas haven’t been DP active for a while, btw). You can also expect Texas to set quite a few more dates before the year is out.
Who knows what the feds are doing? And California may not do anything until 2009, but I think you’ll see dates set in 2008 in Ohio, Tennessee and Delaware.
I think if we get 60 executions this year, it will be a good year for the DP.
Tuesday, 1. July 2008 6:47
[...] A report on California’s death penalty system. H/T and title from CDW. [...]
Wednesday, 2. July 2008 0:08
What a bogus report. The majority on the commission are rabid abolitionists. The courts and defense bar do everything in their power to delay these cases and then complain about it. Counsel can choose an hourly rate or a flat fee. Attys prefer the flat rate and the CSC offered it in order to get more attys to take capital appeals. The only reason the flat rate is being attacked is to make it more difficult to find counsel for these appeals, i.e., another delaying tactic. California is the most populous state and being near the border, there are going to be more dp eligible murders. To whine and complain that there are too many murders being prosecuted as capital cases is ridiculous. There are not. There should be more. This report is the type of dishonesty I have come to expect from those who oppose capital punishment.
Wednesday, 17. December 2008 20:26
Very usefull post.
Thanks.
P.S. I like your writing style.