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July 1, 2008
Justice commission releases final report on California's death penalty
Dear Friend of FCL,
Yesterday afternoon the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice released its final report on California's death penalty at press conference inside the State Capitol. In keeping with its mission, the Commission's report made no moral judgment on capital punishment, but pointed to numerous flaws in the administration of California's death penalty, flaws which would cost taxpayers millions of dollars to fix. Commissioner and former state Attorney General, John Van de Kamp, told reporters that the Commission's bottom line is that unless recommended changes are made, "the death penalty is a hollow promise."
According to the Commission, California's death penalty currently costs $137 million per year, and it takes 20 to 25 years from the imposition of a death sentence for an execution to be carried out. Recommended reforms would reduce that to about 12.5 years, which is the national average, but would push the cost to $233 million per year, an annual increase of $95 million. Previously recommended reforms to reduce wrongful convictions were introduced in legislation that was twice vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.
Among the Commission's recommended procedural reforms:
• Expanding the Office of the State Public Defender's budget by 33 percent to hire additional attorneys to handle direct appeals, which are required by the State Constitution in capital cases, in order to reduce the backlog of defendants without legal representation.
• A 500 percent increase in the California Habeas Corpus Resource Center's budget in order to hire additional attorneys to handle habeas appeals (of California's 670 death row prisoners, 291 have not had an attorney appointed to handle their habeas appeal).
• Providing additional funding to ensure that defense attorneys at the trial level and appellate attorneys meet American Bar Association guidelines (In 70 percent of California death penalty cases, relief is granted at the federal level. The most frequent reason cited is ineffective assistance of counsel. Providing better legal reprensentation at the trial court level would result in few death penalty verdicts and reduce the pressure on the appellate courts.)
Should the legislature be unwilling to enact the proposed reforms, the Commission also listed several alternatives:
• Reducing the number of special circumstances which make defendants eligible for the death penalty, which would lower the costs of California's death penalty by $7 million, to $130 million per year (currently 87 percent of all first degree homicides in California are death eligible) and,
• Replacing California's death penalty with a penalty of life without parole, for a savings of $126 million per year.
The Commission's report also urged several administrative reforms, including:
• A constitutional amendment to permit the California Supreme Court to transfer fully briefed death penalty appeals from the Supreme Court to the Courts of Appeal, contingent on enacting the procedural reforms above, the provision of adequate funding for the Courts of Appeals and ongoing monitoring by the Supreme Court.
• The establishment of a California Death Penalty Review Panel to monitor the progress in reducing delays and the implementation of reforms.
• Requiring District Attorneys to make their procedures for determining death sentences open to public scrutiny. Said Gerald Uelmen, the Commission's Executive Director, "those who litigate it, don't own California's death penalty. It belongs to the voters who passed it."
The Commission is composed of members of the academic, law enforcement and the legal defense communities. Its procedural recommendations were unanimous, and several members called for a recommendation for the abolition of capital punishment. A minority opinion also claimed that the report's presentation of alternatives were biased in opposition to the death penalty.
FCL is morally and religiously opposed to the idea that anyone, including the state, has the right to take a human life, and FCL supports total abolition of the death penalty. The Commission's final report further demonstrates that there is no right way to do the wrong thing. Rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars to "fix" California's death penalty, that money would be better invested in those things which make for safe communities: education, vocational training health care, mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment, to name a few.
Click here to read the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice final report on the death penalty in California.
Sincerely yours,
Jim Lindburg
Legislative Advocate
Friends Committee on Legislation
717 K St., Suite 500-B
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 443-3734
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