Death Penalty

Re “Bigger Court Won’t Be Speedier,” Commentary, July 12:

Gerald Uelmen ruined what appeared to be a reasoned argument against two state Supreme Courts (civil and criminal) when he concluded his article with the suggestion (indictment?) that local prosecutors’ political “grandstanding” is the real culprit in overloading the system with death penalty appeals.

District attorney offices of all but the smallest counties in this state have a death penalty review committee which is guided by meaningful criteria in deciding whether to seek death in any given special circumstance case. When a homicide case does go before a penalty-phase jury, that jury, not the district attorney, acts as the conscience of the community as to whether death will be imposed. A penalty-phase jury is also guided by statutory criteria and instructed that unless the aggravating factors substantially outweigh the mitigating factors, a death sentence cannot result. The jury must be unanimous for a verdict of death to occur.

The reason for the backlog of death cases is that the Supreme Court consists of seven justices (plus law clerks) who have a full complement of civil and criminal cases, in addition to death cases. The death cases often have hundreds of volumes of transcripts, each consisting of several hundred pages of proceedings. It is a simple matter of manpower--why not suggest that the problem is too many violent murders?

HARVEY GISS

Deputy District Attorney

Los Angeles County