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Thread: California Capital Punishment News

  1. #101
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Execution-drug info must be revealed, court rules

    A state appeals court has ordered prison officials to identify pharmaceutical companies they contacted in search of drugs to be used in executions, saying the public is entitled to the information even if it leads to a backlash against the companies.

    The ruling by the First District Court of Appeal emphatically rejected the reasoning of a San Francisco Superior Court judge, who said in February that the strong public views on both sides of capital punishment, and the prospect of boycotts and other actions against potential suppliers of execution drugs, justified withholding the companies' names.

    In Tuesday's ruling, the appeals court said "the passionate nature of the death penalty debate ... heightens public interest in the information at issue in this case."

    Only evidence of a potential security threat to a pharmaceutical company would justify concealing its name, and state officials have offered no such evidence, said Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline in the 3-0 ruling.

    The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the state for information about its search for chemicals to be used in lethal injections, said the ruling was a victory for public accountability.

    "We have the right in this state to know how our tax dollars are being spent," said ACLU attorney Michael Risher. He said the court decision "reaffirms the fundamental value that the more controversy there is over a government policy, the more important it is that we have an informed debate."

    Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the department was reviewing the ruling, and declined further comment.

    Executions in California have been on hold since early 2006 because of federal court rulings questioning the state's lethal-injection procedures and staff training. Meanwhile, the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, the sedative used in the three-drug sequence, has ceased production, prompting California and other states to search for new supplies from hospitals and foreign countries.

    The state has disclosed that it obtained additional supplies from a British manufacturer and verified their safety through independent testing. But the ACLU said in its lawsuit that questions remain about quality control, costs, compliance with importation laws and a largely secretive contracting process.

    In a February ruling granting the state's request to conceal the identities of drug companies contacted by the state, Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard said the death penalty was a "highly heated issue, one that causes great concern."

    "I think that not only is there a safety problem potential, there is a potential problem with boycott and business interests," Woolard said. She also said the Corrections Department was entitled to withhold parts or all of 15 documents that reflected its "decision-making process" in acquiring the drugs.

    But the appeals court said the department had failed to show that its attempts to purchase the drug "involved the formulation of policy" - the legal basis for withholding the documents - or that revealing the names of potential suppliers would interfere with policymaking or put anyone in danger.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1hLD45S4i

  2. #102
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    Senator Seeks to Speed Up Death Penalty Process

    State Sen. Joel Anderson has been an advocate for streamlining the execution process in California, which can last for decades as appeals are heard.

    In a blog post published on Patch last September, Anderson compared the number of inmates executed in Texas with the number in California, “where the average time from sentencing until punishment is about 25 years.”

    “In the last 20 years, California has executed only 13 murderers while Texas has executed over 400. Justice delayed is justice denied,” Anderson wrote.

    Last week, Anderson introduced two measures intended to streamline the implementation of the death penalty in California.

    Under Senate Bill 1514, prisoners sentenced to death would no longer get an automatic appeal, according to a release issued by Anderson’s office. Senate Constitutional Amendment 20 would require that appeals of death penalty cases go to the state Courts of Appeal, instead of the Supreme Court of California.

    According to Anderson’s office, SB 1514 would make California the first state to eliminate automatic appeals of death penalty cases.

    “The most heinous murderers should not be afforded special appeal rights beyond those of other convicted criminals,” Anderson said in a statement. “If anything, the sooner these violent murderers are executed the safer it will be for law-abiding citizens.”

    The Republican senator represents the 36th District, which covers a large part of East County and reaches into Riverside County.

    http://lamesa.patch.com/articles/sen...ocess-ea23785c

  3. #103
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    End death penalty measure likely to be on November ballot

    California voters will have their first opportunity in more than three decades to consider whether to keep the death penalty.

    During news conferences Thursday in San Francisco and three other cities across the state, backers of a proposed ballot initiative to abolish the death penalty announced they had more than enough signatures to put the explosive question on the November ballot. More than 800,000 signatures were gathered, 300,000 more than required.

    The SAFE California Act would scrap capital punishment and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole. If approved, the law would convert the death sentences of the state's 720 death row inmates to life in prison terms and eliminate the death penalty option in murder cases.

    Death penalty opponents are pushing the measure as a way to save the state as much as $180 million per year, arguing that capital punishment has become an expensive waste of money at a time when California is slashing spending on everything from schools to public safety.

    Jeanne Woodford, former chief of the state prison system and San Quentin warden, is leading the campaign, calling the death penalty no more than a "symbolic gesture."

    "(This) will put an end to its intolerable risk and exorbitant cost," she said at the news conference.

    Former Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell announced achieving the signature goal Thursday and insisted the state's voters will be ready to abandon the death penalty.

    Other key figures have raised questions about the 1978 death penalty law in recent months, from state Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye to Don Heller, a former prosecutor who helped craft the 1978 law.

    Death penalty opponents are banking on arguments that California's system is broken, citing the fact there have been just 13 executions since the state restored capital punishment 34 years ago. There also has not been an execution in six years, the result of legal challenges to the lethal injection method that are unlikely to be resolved for at least another year.

    But death penalty supporters are already lining up to combat the measure, saying the cost savings would vanish if the state resumes executions and begins to clear its death row. Law enforcement groups such as the district attorney's association and police groups, along with criminal justice advocacy groups, are expected to campaign against the measure.

    Despite the liberal reputation, polls have shown California voters strongly support the death penalty.

    Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris, who have both expressed opposition to the death penalty in their careers, have taken no position yet on the measure, according to their offices.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_20080389

  4. #104
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    I love Debra Saunders!

    Jerry Brown: No innocent inmates on death row

    Jerry Brown came to the Chronicle editorial board where he made a compelling argument as to why two competing tax measures vying for the November ballot should be scrapped so that his measure can stand a better chance of passing. I used the occasion to ask Brown about the death penalty in California. Brown, a former Attorney General, said that there are no innocent inmates on California’s death row.

    Here’s the exchange.

    In a debate with Meg Whitman in 2010, Brown promised to make the death penalty work in California. I asked him: Is it?

    “It’s working according to the Constitution to the United States, I can tell you that. That requires highly competent counsel and expert witnesses to be hired and all the rest of it. So if you want to talk about the death penalty, you know the history, my father executed 35 people. Since that time, 14 people have been executed. And there’s a certain buildup of responsibilities. The Chief Justice said if you want to make it faster, you’ve got to get more money. I have not chosen to ask for the sums maybe the Chief Justice had in mind because quite frankly, I’m focusing on this.”

    How will Brown vote on the inititiative to scrap California’s death penalty?

    “I’m not prepared to talk about that today. I have plenty of time to mull that one over.”

    Has Brown considered naming a panel to look at death row and recommend any cases deserving of a commutation?

    “I don’t think we need a panel. There’s plenty of lawyers around that if they feel there’s such a case, they’re going to let me know about it.”
    And: “As Attorney General, I think the representation was good. I think people have gotten exquisite due process in the state of California. It goes on for 20 or 25 years and to think that they’ve missed anything like they have in some other states, I have not seen any evidence of it. None. I know people say, ‘Oh, there have been all these innocent people,’ Well, I have not seen one name on death row that’s been told to me.”


    Brown did say that if he heard any complaints, it was that “the place leaks and I should spend another $450 million to fix it. I decided not to.”

    To recap: Brown is a well-known opponent of the death penalty and he says there are no innocent inmates on California’s death row. Remember that the next time you hear otherwise.

    http://blog.sfgate.com/djsaunders/20...ath-row/?tsp=1

  5. #105
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    California enforces death penalty without penalty

    By Debra J. Saunders
    The San Francisco Chronicle

    While running for governor in 2010, Jerry Brown admitted he would "rather have a society where we didn't have to use death as a punishment." But because the Legislature and California voters approved capital punishment, "we've got to make it work."

    With 725 condemned inmates living on San Quentin's Death Row but no executions since January 2006, I asked Gov. Brown at a Chronicle editorial board meeting Tuesday if California's death penalty is working.

    "It's working according to the Constitution of the United States, I can tell you that," Brown answered. No, it's not working. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty is constitutional, but there hasn't been an execution in California for six years.

    Death penalty opponents should note: Brown, a former state attorney general, insisted there are no innocent inmates on California's Death Row.

    But Brown also argued that to make the death penalty work, California needs to spend more money - presumably by paying more for defense attorneys - and that is not his top priority. (His focus is on passing his tax-increase ballot measure to pay down the budget deficit.)

    "It is a basic law of government that if you ask people what is needed to fix any problem, they always say 'more money' for their particular function," observed Kent Scheidegger of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

    Brown must know that spending more money on lawyers won't make California's death penalty work.

    In February 2006, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel stayed the lethal injection of convicted murderer/rapist Michael Morales lest California's three-drug protocol caused a sedated Morales undue pain - and there hasn't been an execution since.

    In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's three-drug protocol in a 7-2 decision, but Fogel didn't budge. So it's hard to imagine how paying defense attorneys more could end the Fogel court's stay on California executions.

    For six years, the state has been in a legal limbo. Californians get to pay for a death penalty without having a death penalty.

    Scheidegger maintains that if Brown's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation switched to the one-drug lethal injection procedure twice recommended by Fogel, executions could resume this year. I'm not so sure.

    Brown would not say how he plans to vote on a likely November ballot initiative to end California's death penalty - he maintained he came to discuss his tax initiative plans.

    But we do know what he said in 2010: In a debate with opponent Meg Whitman, Brown made this promise: "I pledge to the people of this state I will faithfully carry out our law on executions, and I'll do it with compassion, but I'll do it with great fidelity to the rule of law."

    It was four years after Fogel stayed Morales' execution, and Brown knew how "fidelity to the rule of law" works in California. Laws that the U.S. Supreme Court uphold in other states are blocked in California. With the liberal bench and liberal bar acting in harmony, the law's costs go up and the results slow down. Then the whole system just stops and no one is to blame. Except taxpayers.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1oUfWj7qU

  6. #106
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    SLIDESHOW: The Aging Faces Of California's Death Row



    Kevin Cooper



  7. #107
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    Puh.... i think these are the pics on the walls of some antis, aren´t they missy miss? i thought about a other description, but I´m not brave enough to write it.

    Calis DP system is just a joke. It has nothing in common with a serious justice system. Cali has some of the really worst killers but there are no serious efforts to execute them.
    No murder can be so cruel that there are not still useful imbeciles who do gloss over the murderer and apologize.

  8. #108
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    Maybe so Michael, but Cali DR pics are hard to come by so when I find them I post them!

  9. #109
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    Go figure.

    DEATH PENALTY APPEALS PACKAGE DISMISSED

    Bills were designed to speed process, spare families grief

    The Senate Public Safety Committee Tuesday dismissed a two-bill package touted as a streamlining of death penalty appeals that would spare families years of grief and save the state money.

    Taken together, the measures proposed to eliminate the automatic appeal of capital cases directly to the state Supreme Court, giving justices the option of whether to hear a capital challenge only after it has exhausted normal appellate channels.

    Under current law, neither the inmate nor the court has any choice. All death penalty cases are sent directly to the highest court for a review, dragging out legal proceedings for years.

    “By speeding up the death penalty for those who commit murder, California will ensure justice is not necessarily delayed or denied,” said Sen. Joel Anderson, a La Mesa Republican who carried the package. “Appeals would still be allowed if there were actual grounds — just like any criminal case.”

    Anderson drew opposition from disparate groups, including the statewide lobbying arms of public defenders, district attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union. These critics said the lengthy days can be blamed on a shortage of defense lawyers versed in capital punishment as well as general court backlogs. They also worry about putting an innocent person to death.

    Regardless of the debate in the Capitol, Californians could have the final say. An initiative is likely to qualify for the November ballot that would repeal capital punishment and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Anderson’s primary support came from Marc Klass, a well-known advocate for victims whose daughter, Polly, was kidnapped, assaulted and killed by a parolee who has been sitting on death row for nearly 16 years.

    Klass’ frustration boiled over after the committee rejected Senate Bill 1514 and was on the verge of voting against Senate Constitutional Amendment 20.

    “You people don’t care about my daughter, You don’t care about any of the victims,” Klass told the panel. After he was admonished and told part of the solution involved money, Klass demanded: “How much does it cost to do nothing? How much does it cost to let this go on year after year? How much does it cost to have Richard Allen Davis on death row for 30 years?”

    Davis stole into a bedroom of Klass’ suburban Petaluma home, kidnapping by knife point and later killing the 12-year-old Polly. It took nearly 13 years for his automatic appeal to reach the state Supreme Court, which summarily upheld his conviction. His appeal is now before a federal court.

    Anderson presented the committee with a series of enlarged mug shots of notorious murderers, including Davis, awaiting execution for a dozen years or more.

    “We’re talking about coldblooded killers,” he said.

    But critics, even those accustomed to sparring over law and order issues, said the measure is flawed. Daniel Felizzatto, a deputy district attorney with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, warned there would be “unintended consequences,” from backlogged appellate courts to potentially putting the wrong person to death.

    “The main reason for delay is, defendants do not have attorneys appointed for them. This bill does nothing to resolve that problem,” Felizzatto said.

    Allen Hopper, an attorney for the ACLU, said every state but Alabama requires automatic appeals in capital cases.

    Hopper added that appellate courts would have to hire specialized staff to handle death penalty appeals that are notoriously complex. “This is not going to save money. ... It’s going to cost more money,” he said.

    California spends about $184 million a year on the slightly more than 700 people still on death row, according to supporters of a repeal.

    The committee rejected Anderson’s measures on party-line votes, with Democrats opposed.

    http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/...page=2#article
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #110
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    Brown orders consideration of single-drug execution method

    Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered prison officials to consider a single-drug method of executing condemned inmates as the state appeals a court order that has blocked California from carrying out the death penalty.

    Mention of the directive came in a notice of appeal filed Thursday by Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris seeking to counter a February ruling that halted a revised three-drug lethal injection method. The filing came just three days after certification of a November ballot measure that would offer voters the chance to repeal California's death penalty.

    The legal filing said the state would reevaluate its position in favor of the three-drug method if "the drugs needed to implement the protocol have, in fact, become unavailable." The U.S. maker of one of the drugs has stopped manufacturing it.

    "In the meantime, under the governor's direction, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will also begin the process of considering alternative regulatory protocols, including a one-drug protocol, for carrying out the death penalty," the filing said.

    A conservative law and order group sued the state last week to force it to implement a single-drug method of execution, a procedure used in nearly two dozen executions in other states.

    A federal judge in 2006 halted executions in California after finding that inmates might experience excruciating pain under the state's three-drug procedure. California then revised its three-drug protocol, but a Marin County judge ruled in February that the state should have considered a single-drug method.

    Death penalty opponents have long complained that the three-drug method could expose inmates to intense suffering, violating the Constitution's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment." During a federal trial, lawyers for a death row inmate presented evidence that inmates executed in California were not properly anesthetized by the first drug, which was followed by two drugs to paralyze them and stop their heart.

    At least three states are executing inmates with a single large dose of pentobarbital, said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the California Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, the group that sued the state.

    Fears that a single drug would take too long to bring on death have not been borne out, although one inmate executed by pentobarbital reportedly shook violently before dying, Scheidegger said.

    "It's about time" the state appealed the Marin County ruling, said Scheidegger, who faulted the Brown administration for not seeking a stay of the decision.

    Harris' aides referred questions about the appeal to Brown's office, which released a one-sentence statement from the governor: "My administration is working to ensure that California's laws on capital punishment are upheld."

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,6142065.story
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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