Lawmaker Calls for Review of Death Penalty

An influential legislator called Tuesday for a special commission to study California’s death penalty after a hearing that included testimony from former Illinois Gov. George Ryan.

State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) cited racial and geographic disparities in the imposition of capital punishment in her call for a review.

“I do believe Californians would be troubled to know the rules of the game vary from county to county,” Romero said after hearing from more than a dozen witnesses, including prosecutors, defense lawyers, prison officials, relatives of murder victims who both favor and oppose the death penalty, and Ryan.

Three years ago, Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois, after 13 death row inmates had been exonerated and freed since 1977 -- including five cleared by conclusive DNA evidence. Ryan then formed a blue-ribbon commission that called for sweeping changes, but the Legislature declined to act. Just days before his term expired in January, Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 inmates, saying that the state’s system was fatally flawed.

Ryan said there would be no harm should California declare a similar moratorium on executions pending a thorough study of its death penalty system.

“I would urge this state to take a second look,” Ryan said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with calling a halt and spending two years to look at [it] in depth.”

Gov. Gray Davis, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, issued a statement Tuesday reiterating his position. He has said repeatedly that California has a fair system that is not burdened by the problems that beset Illinois.

“Unlike Illinois, not one of the [622] inmates on California’s death row has demonstrated innocence by DNA or other evidence,” the statement said.

At a news conference, Davis said he had met privately with Ryan on Tuesday.

Dane Gillette, who heads the death penalty unit in the California attorney general’s office, took the same position, taking issue with the assertion by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., that three former death row inmates in California have been exonerated.

Gillette and James H. Anderson, a deputy district attorney in Alameda County who has sent 10 men to death row in California, said that California has a good system that provides good representation for defendants and has built in safeguards over the years. Among them, Gillette said, are special instructions cautioning jurors to be wary of the testimony of jailhouse informants. He said that unlike in Illinois, there was no evidence that anyone on death row in California was there as a result of a confession given after being tortured by police.

Michael Laurence, executive director of the state’s Habeas Corpus Resource Center, who has done death penalty appeals for 16 years, said there are many reasons to justify a study commission in California.

Prime among them, he said, is that the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has found serious constitutional problems in 74% of the cases that it has fully reviewed from California. Laurence said that picture is in sharp contrast with the appeals courts decisions in death-penalty cases from Arizona. The 9th Circuit has overturned only 42% of the Arizona death sentences it reviews, Laurence said, noting that the Arizona Supreme Court overturns a much higher percentage of death sentences than the California Supreme Court does.

Senate staff members said they believe that state Sen. President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco), who is a death penalty critic, has the authority to create a commission, but they said he would not do so unless he could secure bipartisan support for it.

At the end of the four-hour hearing, Romero said she hoped that state officials would take a close look at the system. “We have the largest death row in the nation,” Romero said. “We have the largest number” of surviving family members of murder victims. “We want to make sure we have a fair process.”

Romero said she was particularly troubled that 35% of California’s death row inmates are African American, although blacks comprise only 7% of the state’s population. Romero said that some counties have sent many people to death row, but 19 counties have no one there.

“At a time when Gov. Davis is proposing that we build a state-of-the-art, $220-million death row, even though we have a $34-billion budget deficit, I think it is an appropriate moment to study” how the death penalty is working in California, said Romero, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on the California Correctional System.