Dec. 14
CALIFORNIA:
Ashburn: Time to speed up death penalty proces.
By Senator Roy Ashburn, 18th Senate District The recent spotlight on the
impending execution of multiple-murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams has
once again highlighted the flaws in Californias death penalty law.
Williams was put to death at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, after he was denied
clemency by Governor Schwarzenegger. Williams was convicted in 1981 of
murdering four people and sentenced to death. Yet 26 years after his
victims took their final breaths, the killer still lives. His lawyers have
continued to maneuver to thwart the sentence duly handed down by a jury of
his peers until the very end. Williamss case demonstrates just how
dysfunctional the death penalty process is in California.
The seemingly endless appeals process for condemned killers now faces a
backlog of about 650 individuals living on death row. Since the death
penalty was reestablished in California in 1977 only 11 executions have
taken place, while 30 death row inmates have died from natural causes. For
the handful of executions that have taken place, the average delay from
the courthouse steps to the chamber at San Quentin is 16 years.
Under both California and Federal Law there is a specific, detailed and
lengthy appeals process that must be followed before an inmate may be
scheduled for execution. Adding to the delays is the fact that the kinds
of inmates who commit capital offenses tend to be indigent and unable to
pay for their own defense. Those with some financial means usually exhaust
their resources before the appeal process is completed. As a result most
death penalty appeals fall on the shoulders of the Office of the State
Public Defender.
Those cases must then be prioritized, funded, and staffed along with the
myriad of other cases the public defender is tasked with, resulting in
still more delays.
Death by old age was not what the voters had in mind when they reinstated
the death penalty in 1977. Delays and backlogs may serve the desires of
death penalty opponents; however the people of California continue to
demand the ultimate punishment for the most heinous of crimes. Since 1977
California has experienced wide swings in ideological trends and partisan
preferences. During that time however one policy stance has remained
consistent: support for the death penalty. The respected Field Poll has
shown support ranging from two-thirds to 3/4 of Californians.
Is it even possible then to both fulfill the wishes of Californias
citizens and comply with the lengthy appeals mandated under federal law?
Clearly it is possible, as demonstrated in the state of Texas. Compared to
California's 11 executions in 30 years, Texas has carried out 355 capital
sentences, during the same time period. They have streamlined their death
row appellate process and eliminated other legal hurdles, without denying
any single killer his right to appeal.
Similar capital punishment reform can be accomplished in California, which
is why I have co-authored Senate Bill 378 (Morrow). In the mid 1990s the
legislature created the California Habeas Corpus Resource Center (HCRC)
whose purpose is to represent indigent death row defendants and get the
appeal process moving. SB 378 builds on those efforts by nearly tripling
the size of the HCRC from its present 45 lawyers and staff to 127. The
bill also requires competency standards for the lead counsel in death
penalty appeals. This will minimize the all too common last minute plea
that "incompetent" lawyers represented the defendant during his appeals.
SB 378 also contains a dozen or so other legal remedies, which will
eliminate unreasonable delays in the resolution of post conviction issues
and reduce the number of proceedings in capital cases.
If any criminal punishment is to have a deterrent effect, such punishment
must be swift and certain. Until the death penalty is carried out in such
a fashion in our state, innocent Californians will continue to be
assaulted and murdered. That capital punishment is a deterrent is beyond
dispute. Since the State of Texas made a serious effort to carry out the
death sentence in the 1990s, the murder rate fell 60% while the national
murder rate fell just 33%.
The Stanley "Tookie" Williams case has reminded us once again how violent
murderers continue to live out their lives on death row, reading and
writing and taking a deep breath each morning when they awake. At the same
time the families of their victims continue to shed tears for the cruel
and violent loss of their loved ones. It is not about any one killer and
the regret he may have for horrors committed long ago. It is instead time
to send a message to potential killers in our midst. It is time to show
that punishment for the most brutal murders will be swift and severe. Our
families deserve nothing less.
Senator Ashburn represents the 18th Senate District including Tulare,
Kern, Inyo, and San Bernardino Counties.
(source: Bakersfield Online)
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It is amazing to see Texas held up as a yardstick by which California
should measure its own death penalty.
Texas, which has carried out 355 executions since 1982, still ranks among
the most violent states in the nation. The Texas death penalty system is
recognized throughout the nation as among the most structurally flawed and
racist systems in practice today; the state has no statute defining mental
retardation; the state still executes profoundly mentally ill and
disturbed people; the state is under the microscope of domestic and
international criticism for executing innocent people (Ruben Cantu and
Larry Willingham), and it has already released 8 innocent people from its
death rows.
It is disgraceful and outrageous to see any elected politician justify
state-sanctioned executions, and to use Texas as an example of efficiency
which should be emulated elsewhere only indicates how either uninformed
and/or uncaring about such a flawed system you truly are.
The death penalty has no place in this or any other nation, and the time
has long since come to eliminate it from our national experience.
(source: Rick Halperin, President, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty)
