Judge Orders Data on Thousands of Killings in Death Penalty Case

In what the state attorney general’s office described as “the most far-ranging” such order ever made in California, a judge is requiring prosecutors to provide details of as many as 10,000 homicide cases to determine whether the death penalty is being applied in a discriminatory manner, it was learned Monday.

The order by Justice Bernard Jefferson, a retired appellate judge, is important because the information it will reveal could be pivotal to an attack on the constitutionality of the death penalty in this state.

Jefferson ordered the state attorney general and Los Angeles County district attorney to provide the information by Sept. 10, despite strong opposition from the agencies.

“Our instinct is that this is the most far-ranging discovery order ever issued in a criminal case in California,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Susan Lee Frierson.

Frierson estimated that there have been 10,000 murder and manslaughter cases since August, 1977, when capital punishment was reinstated in California. To obtain accurate information about them, officials would have to look through thousands of files.

“In the Computer Age, sometimes you think all you have to do is push a button,” she said. “It is not that easy.” Frierson said that she expects to appeal the order, presumably to the state Supreme Court.

“This information is not at our fingertips,” Assistant Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay said. “Theoretically, it might be possible for us to comply. But it would take us a long, long time to do it. And it would be very costly.”

State Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner sent letters last week to each district attorney and county clerk in the state, asking whether they have the required information, how much it would cost to get and whether they would be willing to turn it over without a court order.

Death penalty foes have long claimed that capital punishment discriminates against racial minorities. A recent study in Georgia showed that a convicted murderer was 4.3 times more likely to receive the death penalty when the victim was white than when the victim was black.

Jefferson’s order, dated June 26, came in the case of Earl Lloyd Jackson, whose conviction and death penalty were affirmed by the California Supreme Court on Oct. 23, 1980.

Long Beach Case

Jackson, who is black, was convicted in Long Beach of killing two elderly women in August and September, 1977, and raping one of them. He is one of three men whose death sentences have been upheld by the state Supreme Court since the death penalty was reinstated in California in 1977.

Like the other two Death Row inmates whose sentences have been upheld in California, Jackson has been pressing his case further, claiming that he had an incompetent trial lawyer and that the death penalty in California is discriminatory.

Jefferson was assigned to hear Jackson’s habeas corpus claims by California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird.

Jackson’s lawyers hope that they can convince the state Supreme Court to declare the death penalty unconstitutional if this new information proves Jackson’s claim that the death penalty is discriminatory.

“Regardless of one’s view on the death penalty, nobody takes the position that the state should be able to impose it disproportionately on blacks,” Eric S. Multhaup, one of Jackson’s lawyers, said.

The order requires the state to turn over computer tapes concerning all homicides since Aug. 11, 1977.

It also directs the state attorney general and Los Angeles district attorney to turn over the name, case number and county where charges were brought against every defendant who was:

- Convicted of first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter who was initially accused of murder with so-called special circumstances, making the defendant liable for the death penalty.

- Convicted of first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter--plus felonies ranging from kidnaping to robbery, burglary, rape, arson and train-wrecking--in which there were no special circumstances charged.

- Convicted of first-degree murder who had been previously convicted of murder, making them eligible for the death penalty.

Multhaup said the information is available, or should be, in the state Bureau of Criminal Statistics’ computer files.

“The order does nothing but make the state turn over what it has been gathering over the years,” Multhaup said.