CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS ATTORNEY GENERAL : Smith Backs Extending Death Penalty to Rape, Kidnap Cases

Democratic state attorney general candidate Arlo Smith said Friday that the death penalty should be extended to cases of rape and kidnap in which the victim suffers great bodily harm--but is not murdered.

Meanwhile, his Republican opponent, Dan Lungren of Long Beach--a longtime abortion foe--said that in the current national climate he could support the right to abortion in the case of rape, incest or threat to the life of a mother.

The pair made the statements as they sought to fine-tune their positions during and after a heated, hourlong KABC-AM debate Friday. The forum, moderated by Michael Jackson, was their first joint appearance since the June primary in which Lungren ran unopposed and Smith, the San Francisco district attorney, defeated Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner.

Smith’s position on capital punishment emerged after Lungren, on the air, questioned whether the Democrat has ever wavered in his support of executions.

Stating that he has consistently supported executions, Smith cited the controversial case of rapist-kidnaper Caryl Chessman. During the 1950s, Smith, then a deputy attorney general, appeared before the state and U.S. Supreme Courts to fight Chessman’s requests for a new trial. Chessman was put to death in 1960 for committing a robbery-kidnap in which the victim suffered bodily harm.

Jackson asked Smith why Chessman should have been executed, since he had not killed anyone.

“Because here’s a case where we had rape, serious bodily injury to the individual, a case where we had serious mental damage to the victim,” Smith replied.

Smith said after the debate that he still supports the death penalty in rape cases in which the victim is not murdered. “Yes, yes,” he said, “where it’s connected with great bodily injury, absolutely.”

“It doesn’t need to be rape,” Smith added. “Any other kind of kidnaping with great bodily injury (too).”

Enactment of such measures would take major upheavals in federal and state laws.

In the 1977 case of Coker v. George, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal Constitution prohibited the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman. The court, in its opinion, termed the death penalty “grossly disproportionate and excessive punishment for the crime of rape.”

In addition, current California statutes call for the death penalty only in certain cases of first-degree murder. Lungren, a strong death-penalty advocate, disagreed with Smith’s support for extending the death penalty to rape and kidnaping cases. “Why worry about getting involved in that dilemma with the courts?” Lungren declared. “You’d never get it by the court in any event.”

Lungren also said he could currently support legislation allowing abortions in cases involving rape and incest, even though he hopes such abortions would eventually be halted. Lungren, who did not run for reelection in 1988, repeatedly voted against government funding for abortion in cases of rape or incest during his 10 years in the House of Representatives.

“I would hope our society would come to a position sometime in the future where we would not in fact have abortion following upon rapes or incest,” Lungren said. “However, I recognize we are not there now. We probably won’t be there anytime in the near future. We do not give the support that is necessary for people who are victims of those particular crimes . . . (So) I would vote for legislation that would allow for exception of the life of the mother and rape or incest.”

After the debate, Smith’s press secretary, Betsy Hely, called Lungren’s position a “flip-flop,” considering his past opposition to federal funding.

Smith, a strong abortion-rights advocate, has contended that the issue is important because the future attorney general is likely to make legal rulings on the subject.