For decades, California’s highest court has left it up to individual juries to decide whether certain circumstances increase the severity of a crime and therefore justify the death penalty in murder cases that qualify for the maximum punishment.
On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court heard arguments about a change to that long-standing practice, which could overturn hundreds of death penalty sentences in California.
What is at stake is how jurors review “aggravating” factors, such as whether a crime was gang-related or involved multiple victims. Defense attorneys in the case argued that, to ensure equitable application of the death penalty, state law and the state Constitution require juries to be unanimous in their reasoning on each factor.
That the court is considering new requirements is unusual. He has refused to impose them in the past and has even summarily dismissed the kinds of arguments presented on Wednesday.
Bulletin
Receive the latest news in Spanish Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
–
Subscribe to our newsletter
Occasionally, you may receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune en Español.
–
But the composition of the court has changed over the years. Last June, the court issued a short order requesting written arguments on the jury issue in what would otherwise be a routine death penalty case. That raised hopes that the court might be ready to wield capital punishment in California, a state that has most sentenced inmates to the death penalty in the country but has carried out almost no executions.
Wednesday’s hearing likely dampened those hopes. During a 90-minute hearing, only three judges spoke, the most liberal members of the seven-member court. Although the silence of the majority can be interpreted in different ways, the audience did not clearly point out that huge changes were taking place.
The June order asked litigants to present written arguments on this issue: Should a jury decide beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant should receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole, and should that jury also be unanimous when deciding the reasons for a capital verdict? If the court agreed, a ruling would likely void hundreds, if not all, of previous death sentences in California.
The court’s sudden interest in the issue alarmed supporters of the death penalty. Since they consider the questions answered for a long time. Kent Scheidegger, a lawyer for a leading group in favor of the death penalty, said he was “surprised” and “very concerned”, even with the change in the composition of the court.
Over the past decade, the government appointments of Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, both opponents of the death penalty, have transformed the court from a moderately conservative forum dominated by ex-prosecutors to a moderately liberal one. Democratic appointees now hold five of the seven seats.
Newsom also presented written arguments in the case urging the court to take a new path. In a report written by two jurists, Newsom attacked the death penalty as racist and cited studies that found the system discriminated against black and Latino defendants.
Brown-appointed Judge Goodwin Liu spoke the most during the hearing. He repeatedly pressured defense attorneys to cite precedents for their positions.
“I think your argument is very attractive from an equity perspective,” Liu told a defense attorney.
Liu’s “difficulty” was finding cases to support the argument legally. Is it possible, he asked, “that this topic has simply been overlooked all this time? For 150 years, have we ignored this problem? “
Under California’s death penalty law, capital trials take place in two phases. In the first, the jury decides guilt. The verdict must be unanimous and beyond reasonable doubt.
During the second phase, the jury decides whether to impose the death penalty or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The jury considers “aggravating” factors that favor the death penalty and compares them with mitigating factors, such as the defendant’s history of gross abuse.
Individual juries can now decide which aggravating factor in the dispute weighs in favor of death. Your decision on the penalty must be unanimous, but your reasoning may vary. Defense attorneys want the court to require the jury to reach unanimous agreement on the factor that justifies the death penalty and to decide the penalty under a standard of “beyond reasonable doubt.”
Judge Joshua Groban, another Brown appointee, noted that courts uphold criminal verdicts all the time in which different jurors had differing views on how the crime was committed.
But both Liu and Judge Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, also appointed by Brown, seemed open to the idea that the jury’s final decision on whether a defendant should live or die should be made beyond reasonable doubt.
Scheidegger even noted that the defense’s partial victory would have a “catastrophic” impact on the death penalty and potentially void dozens of sentences. Such decisions in California generally apply retroactively.
But Scheidegger said he felt “cautiously optimistic” after the hearing.
Liu commented that he did not appear to “agree” with the main arguments of the accused.
UC Berkeley law professor Elisabeth A. Semel, who co-wrote Newsom’s written argument, declined to predict how the court would vote.
“Judges Liu, Cuellar and Groban had some tough questions” for the deputy attorney general who defended the death penalty, he said. “I don’t think she responded to his satisfaction.”
California has more than 700 inmates on death row, but legal challenges have hampered executions. Only 13 prisoners have received the death penalty since 1992, and Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions during his tenure.
The court case is an appeal by Don’te Lamont McDaniel, who was convicted with a co-defendant of entering an apartment in the Nickerson Gardens public housing project in South Los Angeles in April 2004 to resolve a dispute. for drugs.
McDaniel was found guilty of killing two people and wounding two witnesses. The dead were George Brooks, 33, and Brooks’s cousin, Annette Anderson, 52.
Regardless of what the court decides, the case of People v. Don’te Lamont McDaniel has focused attention on the fairness of the jury process in deciding the sentence.
Even Deputy District Attorney Dana Muhammad Ali, who argued that the law does not require the new jury rules, called McDaniel’s attorneys’ arguments “persuasive.” He said the state attorney’s office believes that adding such rules “deserves serious consideration” by voters, who could change the requirements for how juries decide the death penalty.
“These additional requirements are feasible because there are other states that have incorporated them into their death penalty schemes,” he told the court.
Defense attorney Elias Batchelder implored the court to be bold, despite numerous rulings upholding the death sentences without imposing jury requirements.
“Sometimes the courts make profound mistakes,” he said, “and it is not a malfunction of justice for the courts to look deeply into history and reconsider.”
–
