Capital Punishment Favored by 9 Out of 10 Voters in O.C.

In the strongest show of support for capital punishment in the state, roughly nine of every 10 Orange County voters favor the death penalty as the first execution in California since 1967 approaches, a Los Angeles Times poll shows.

Statewide, the telephone survey of more than 1,600 registered voters indicates that about 78% support capital punishment, substantially less on a percentage basis than in Orange County, which traditionally has been strongly supportive of the death penalty.

“Basically, this is a county of working people, homeowners and business people who have strong feelings about law and order,” said Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. James Enright, who supervises the handling of homicide cases in Orange County. “Naturally, they would be prone toward supporting the death penalty.”

Judging from past elections and polls, the county’s overwhelming support for capital punishment has risen by 10% to 12% in 20 years. Local backing reached 78.4% in 1978, when an initiative to restore the death penalty in California was approved by the voters.

It is the kind of strong sentiment that in 1973 prompted then Orange County Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks to call for the resignation of former Assembly Speaker Bob Moretti (D-Los Angeles) for opposing the death penalty.

And it is the same widespread feeling this year that has inspired state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), who is a candidate for lieutenant governor, to ask that he be allowed to witness the execution of Robert Alton Harris.

“Orange County citizens are probably more conservative on law and order issues than the rest of the state,” Seymour said. “But I see something else in those statistics--a frustration on the part of citizens and myself. We have expressed our will three times in support of death penalty initiatives only to have it frustrated by a liberal judicial system.”

In March, The Times poll interviewed 1,667 registered voters across the state, including 116 in Orange County. Those surveyed were asked 11 questions about their views on the death penalty ranging from degree of support to whether they think minorities are condemned to death more than whites.

The results show that 74% of Orange County residents strongly support the death penalty, while about 14% said they favored it somewhat. Only 4% strongly opposed capital punishment.

Across the state, 59% said they strongly favored the death penalty, while 19% supported it somewhat. About 10% of people in California strongly oppose executions.

According to the results, 75% of Orange County residents, compared to 60% statewide, preferred the death penalty instead of life in prison without possibility of parole for those convicted of murder.

“It’s a shocking statistic that shows a decline in moral and religious values,” said Richard P. Herman, a prominent Orange County civil rights lawyer and board member of the Prisoners Rights Union in Sacramento. “To invest the moral authority of the state in committing murder puts us among the ranks of the most repressive nations in the world, including the Soviet Union and South Africa.”

Today, 21 men who have been sentenced in Orange County Superior Court are awaiting execution on San Quentin’s Death Row. Among the most notorious Death Row inmates from Orange County are Randy S. Kraft, 45, who was convicted in 1989 of murdering 16 young men, and William G. Bonin Jr., 43, sentenced in the early 1980s for 10 sex-related slayings of young men and boys in Los Angeles and four killings in Orange County.

About two-thirds of Orange County residents surveyed think capital punishment is seldom a deterrent, compared to 56% for the rest of the state. About one in four in Orange County and one in five statewide think it is right to execute prisoners to save money.

Regarding Harris, 61% of those surveyed in Orange County and 60% statewide favor his execution for killing of two teen-age boys.