Death Penalty for Killers of Children OKd by Assembly

The Assembly, with strong bipartisan support, passed legislation Thursday to extend the death penalty to murderers of children under age 14--the first time a death penalty bill has cleared the house in more than a decade.

With elections on the horizon and an internal rebellion by conservative Democrats under way, the Assembly also took the first steps toward passing a bill that would allow wiretapping of suspected drug dealers.

The wiretapping provision, sought by Gov. George Deukmejian but stalled in the Assembly by liberal Democrats for more than a decade, was jammed into another bill on a 48-13 vote. It will be brought to a floor vote next week and passage is considered all but certain.

The death penalty bill also had been bottled up in the Assembly but, like the wiretapping measure, was brought back to life through the efforts of the “Gang of Five” dissident Democrats, who are leading a rebellion against Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco). The Democratic rebels were supported by all 36 Republicans.

The Assembly was in a tough anti-crime mood on Thursday as Democrats and Republicans lined up to send the death penalty bill to the Senate on a lopsided 62-7 vote, bringing members to their feet in loud applause.

Afterward, Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista), one of the five rebel Democrats, hailed the outcome as evidence that “the system can work.”

“This seems to prove we are right that (Democratic leaders) had been acting to control the policy,” Peace said. “It also shows that, in their hearts, (the death penalty) is supported by a majority of Democrats.”

But Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Tarzana), who cast one of the seven votes against the measure, said that “whether my views are reflective of the majority view of this Legislature or this state does not change the reasons that I believe the death penalty is wrong.”

The death penalty bill would allow capital punishment to be imposed on anyone 18 years or older convicted of murdering a child under age 14. The measure is sponsored by Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-San Marcos), who was prompted to act by the gruesome torture death in 1986 of a 6-year-old San Diego girl, Amber Rose Avey.

California law allows the death penalty to be imposed only under “special circumstances” that include murder of public officials, killings carried out for financial gain or those committed during the commission of other crimes. However, the age of the victim has not been included as a criteria for imposing a death sentence.

Penalty Reinstated

The last time a death penalty bill passed the Legislature was in 1977 when then-Sen. Deukmejian succeeded in pushing through a measure that reinstated capital punishment after it was overturned by the California Supreme Court. In 1978, voters expanded the law by approving a ballot initiative, but the Legislature has resisted any further tinkering.

The sudden success of both the capital punishment and wiretap bills does not in itself signal a conservative shift within the Legislature. But it does reflect the apparent suspension--if not elimination--of a process in which some controversial measures are smothered in committees to avoid embarrassment for certain members who oppose them but could be harmed politically by voting against them on the house floor.

Even so, political maneuvering on the Assembly floor continued Thursday as both parties recessed into long afternoon caucuses trying to decide how to handle the rebels’ latest moves.

In the case of the wiretapping bill, both sides knew from the beginning that there were enough votes to bring it to a floor vote. The argument was over who should take credit.

Reelection Fights

The Assembly’s Democratic leadership wanted the bill to carry the name of Assemblyman Steve Clute (D-Riverside), who is facing a tough reelection bid in his conservative district. But Republicans and the Gang of Five balked, wanting the credit to go to themselves.

As it stood at the end of Thursday’s session, the GOP and the rebel Democrats were the winners. The bill apparently will carry the names of dissident Democrat Gerald R. Eaves (D-Rialto) and Republican Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro), both of whom also are facing tough reelection fights in their districts.

“Boy oh boy, that is power,” Republican Assemblyman Gil Ferguson exclaimed as a preliminary vote showed the Democrats could not stop the wiretapping measure.

In fact, Brown later conceded that he had little power to do anything with the bill after one Democrat urged him to send the measure back to committee.

“It takes 41 votes (a majority) to do that and I don’t want to demonstrate too often that I don’t have that,” the Speaker told the Assembly.

Efforts to enact a wiretapping bill have foundered for years in the Legislature despite strong support from prosecutors and law enforcement agencies. This year, however, Deukmejian listed the bill, introduced by Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), as a key element in his package of anti-drug legislation and strongly criticized the liberal-oriented Assembly Public Safety Committee for refusing to approve it.

Court Authority

The bill, which passed the Senate 24 to 3, would allow local police and state law enforcement officers to electronically eavesdrop on suspected drug dealers after obtaining permission from the courts. Federal authorities already have the power to tap telephone conversations with court approval, as do local authorities in an estimated 30 states.

Although California law enforcement agencies can ask the federal government to install wiretaps under federal authority, local officials say it shatters their independence and hampers their own investigations.

One controversial aspect of the bill is a provision that would allow law enforcement officers to use evidence gathered from a tapped phone conversation with a suspected drug dealer against a caller who had nothing to do with the purported drug-related crime.

“We are entering a very, very dark world here,” Speaker Pro Tem Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) said of the wiretap measure.

The debate over the death penalty bill brought some sharp exchanges. And later, Democrats and Republicans alike said they had seen few debates like this in recent memory.

Noting that state law presently allows the death penalty for the murder of an elected official but not a child, Assembly Minority Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale called the current situation the “height of hypocrisy.”

Termed a Scandal

“It is unfortunate there is any controversy over this at all. . . . It’s a scandal,” Nolan added.

But Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), who abstained from voting, said the bill won’t do anything. “We don’t even deal with the reasons why people do what they do. Until we do, the rest is a shuck and jive, it’s embarrassing.”

The debate reached an emotional crescendo when Assemblyman Stan Statham (R-Oak Run) held up a photograph of a 3-year-old girl who was whipped to death during a 50-minute beating by her mother’s boyfriend, a convicted child abuser paroled from prison.

“If you’ve got the courage,” Statham told his Assembly colleagues, “please come up and look at these photos.”