Democrats Square Off in Final Debate : Politics: Kathleen Brown spends most of the time attacking Pete Wilson. Garamendi confronts her on death penalty issue. Hayden tries to draw attention to faults in the political system.

An occasionally nasty and frequently illuminating series of debates between the three Democratic candidates for governor ended Wednesday with frontrunner Kathleen Brown seeking to turn her fire on her prospective November opponent, Pete Wilson--but finding her own views the subject of continuing, contentious dispute.

Repeatedly during a two-hour radio debate moderated by KABC radio announcer Michael Jackson, the state treasurer blamed Wilson for everything from the California recession to the influx of illegal immigrants and a delay in the siting of a proposed nuclear waste dump.

Pressing her campaign slogan--that she will try to create 1 million jobs during her first term--Brown said the state needs “a governor who understands, appreciates and is willing to invest in California’s future.”

“If we can create 1 million new jobs in the state, we can end the Wilson recession,” Brown contended in the third debate in as many days.

Yet even as she sought to look past her June opponents--Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi and state Sen. Tom Hayden--to Wilson, Brown was hobbled by her refusal to explain her personal objections to the death penalty.

At one point, the effort to draw out Brown’s beliefs took a comic turn. After twice being rebuffed when he asked her to explain her personal objections, Jackson virtually begged the treasurer for details.

“But why are you against it? Why don’t you like it? (Pretend) I’m your child. ‘Mommy, what’s wrong with the death penalty?’ I need to know where you are coming from,” Jackson pleaded.

Brown refused once again.

“I have simply very long-held personal beliefs and opinions that I am not prepared to change for elective office,” she said. “And I see it as an issue that politicians and, quite frankly, the press uses when we have so many problems in this state. We have had the death penalty for over 12 years and what we need to have is a governor who is going to focus in on how we’re going to stop the violence.”

Jackson retorted: “I still don’t know why you’re against it.”

And Brown responded sharply: “But what you do know, Michael, and what the people of California know, is that I will enforce the law.”

Garamendi sought to further Jackson’s inquiry, demanding to know whether judges appointed by Brown would support the death penalty--she indicated that they would--and taking an aggressive position himself.

“You murder somebody in cold blood in California when I’m governor and you can expect that your life will be taken in an execution,” Garamendi said.

Jackson, noting that 1,200 killings occurred in the area last year, asked: “How many people would you put to death? Every single person who kills someone else?”

“That’s the way it’s going to be,” Garamendi replied. “Enough of this kind of playing around.”

“Twelve hundred executions?” Jackson asked.

“Yes, 1,200 executions,” Garamendi said. He later explained that he favors executions for capital offenses.

As he did in the first two debates--held Monday in Sacramento and Tuesday in San Francisco--the third candidate, Hayden, looked over the Brown-Garamendi battles with something approaching detached amusement. He was seated between the two at the debate site, a ballroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. At one point his head whipped back and forth from one to another, as if he was a tennis referee in the midst of a big game.

Hayden also provided many of the debate’s most thoughtful moments, taking on Brown and Garamendi for their political positions yet praising them as well-meaning public servants. The approach was in keeping with the Santa Monica senator’s contention that the political system--and not this year’s crop of Democrats--is corrupt and in need of reform.

“I think John and Kathleen are very public-spirited people and very good people and most of my colleagues in the Legislature--except those who have departed because of the decisions of juries--are also very good people,” said Hayden, alluding to the recent convictions of several legislators.

“But you have basically a system of terrible temptations.”

Hayden said Brown and Garamendi had given state contracts to campaign contributors.

“That’s why the state is in such bad shape, because the state bureaucracy is riddled with favoritism--and that’s why we can’t get more attention to greater funding for schools . . . because the state budget has already been dipped into by lobbyists for special interests,” Hayden said.

The radio debate was the longest of the three sessions and covered broad ground, from campaign reform to immigration to schools. Garamendi, picking up where he left off Tuesday night, continued to accuse Brown of being under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Once again, John, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brown told her opponent.

The SEC’s chief spokeswoman, Jennifer Kimball, on Wednesday flatly denied that the agency was investigating Brown.

Apart from responding to his gibes, Brown ignored Garamendi and used the final primary debate as practice against Wilson. She said that the governor’s television ads, which feature footage of illegal immigrants running across the border, were “inciting fear.” She contended that Wilson had done nothing about the issue of immigration when he was a U.S. senator.

“We need to have a little truth-in-packaging here for what he has done and what he’s failed to do,” she said.

She also blamed Wilson for delays in the decision whether to locate a nuclear dump in Ward Valley.

But Brown took no position on whether the dump should be allowed, saying only that hearings must be held. Garamendi agreed, but Hayden flatly opposed the dump.

Contributing to this article were Times staff writers Paul Jacobs and Amy Wallace.