New Model in Capital Crime Cases

When compared with Texas, which operates a virtual assembly line to the death chamber, California is slow and deliberative in imposing the ultimate punishment. More than 500 inmates sit on California’s death row, but only nine people have been executed in the last 35 years. The state’s mandatory appellate review in capital cases and local standards regarding the assignment of trial judges and counsel help to prevent or reverse wrongful convictions. Long delays are seen as the price of greater accuracy.

Yet in any capital case, no matter how carefully conducted, mistakes can occur. The availability of DNA testing and aggressive efforts in a number of states to review shaky convictions have found evidence leading to the exoneration and release of several long-term death row inmates.

These post-conviction reversals shine welcome light on the trial process in capital cases nationwide. The most egregious error--wrongful conviction--is made at trial, and that’s where states, California among them, should build in better safeguards. The Illinois Supreme Court adopted a number of useful new rules in this regard in a report issued last week; they merit review by California judges.

The Illinois rules emerged from a two-year study after the eleventh-hour exoneration of a man who had spent 16 years on death row. That case and others prompted Gov. George Ryan last year to declare a moratorium on executions pending study of Illinois’ capital punishment system.

The Illinois high court will now require judges who hear death penalty trials to attend seminars on capital cases at least every two years. All California judges must attend a wide-ranging orientation when they join the bench, but it devotes no time to the death penalty. And while many criminal judges elect to attend a death penalty seminar given twice annually, one of hundreds of continuing education courses offered throughout the state, this course is not required even for judges hearing capital trials. It should be.

Illinois’ new rules, which take effect in March, also apply to both public and private defense lawyers. Two lawyers will be appointed for every poor defendant in a capital case. To qualify for these cases, a lawyer must be certified by the Illinois Supreme Court.

Standards for public defenders and private counsel in California are set locally rather than statewide. The Los Angeles County public defender, for example, requires lead attorneys in death penalty trials to have the highest ranking in terms of experience and performance. But state standards would be more appropriate, and we urge California to follow Illinois’ lead.