D.A. to Stop Seeking Death in Some Cases to Ease Extraditions

Los Angeles County’s new district attorney has decided to forgo the death penalty and seek life sentences in some murder cases in which foreigners have fled to homelands that refuse extradition in death cases.

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley’s new policy is aimed at spurring extraditions and ending stalemates that have seen some suspects, wanted for murders here, remain at large in Mexico and other countries that refuse to subject their citizens to capital punishment.

The stalemates arose because prosecutors here followed a strict protocol that forbade them from formally declaring whether they would seek a death sentence until a suspect was in custody in the United States and had had a preliminary court hearing. Mexico, Canada and some other nations refused to return suspects to the United States unless they were assured that prosecutors had decided not to seek the death penalty.

“There are a number of cases where justice is not being done because of our office’s historic policy,” Cooley said Monday. He declined to name any of the cases for fear of alerting suspects, but said: “There are certain people I want to bring back now. . . . If we get life without possibility of parole, there is serious justice.”

Cooley approved a policy change that will allow prosecutors promptly to declare their intentions to seek life sentences in such cases. They can act when law enforcement officials present them with requests to extradite fugitives from countries that require assurances that the death penalty will not be imposed.

The policy change was implemented for the first time last week. A committee of senior prosecutors that decides whether to seek the death penalty agreed not to do so in a case involving a murder suspect authorities believe fled to Mexico. A senior prosecutor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the facts of that case did not meet the office’s standards for seeking death.

California law allows prosecutors wide latitude. They can ask a jury to vote for the death penalty whenever “special circumstances” are present in a murder case. These include murder committed for financial gain, while lying in wait and during the course of certain felonies such as kidnapping, robbery or burglary.

Although special circumstances are present in many cases, prosecutors in Los Angeles seek death in just a few they deem the most heinous, often involving adults with multiple victims.

Even when the district attorney’s office seeks death, there is a long road to lethal injection: More than 500 inmates are on California’s death row. In 35 years, only nine have been executed.

Prosecutors said they were not certain how many cases would be affected by the new policy.

Cooley’s predecessor, Gil Garcetti, had contended that a change in policy would encourage nationals who commit murders here to flee to their home countries to inoculate themselves against capital punishment. He also said the change would, in effect, allow other countries to dictate the manner of enforcement of U.S. laws.

In one highly publicized case, he turned aside pleas to change the policy from former U.S. Rep. Matthew G. “Marty” Martinez of Monterey Park. Martinez asked Garcetti to promise not to seek death so that Evelio Rivera Zacarias, a Mexican citizen accused of killing four members of a Rosemead family in 1999, could be extradited. Zacarias is still at large in Mexico, Eddie Corletto, a relative of the victims, said Monday. He said Mexican authorities had shown no interest in prosecuting Zacarias because none of his alleged victims were Mexican nationals.

Cooley, who defeated Garcetti in the November election, said he plans to make the Bush administration aware of the problem in the hopes that it will eventually negotiate treaties with other countries that will respect “the will of our state law.” Meanwhile, he said, “we have to respect other sovereign nations’ constitutions.”

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Times staff writer Joe Mozingo contributed to this story.