Capital punishment in California
[8][9] California voters rejected two initiatives to repeal the death penalty by popular vote in 2012 and 2016, and they narrowly adopted in 2016 another proposal to expedite its appeal process.
According to the California Department of Corrections, although the law did not require the trial judge to choose a specific prison, it was customary for recidivists to be sent to Folsom.
The first people to die in the San Quentin gas chamber (the only one in the state) were Albert Kessell and Robert Lee Cannon on December 2, 1938.
On July 2, 1976, the Supreme Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, reviewing capital punishment laws enacted in response to its Furman decision, found constitutional those statutes that allowed a jury to impose the death penalty after consideration of both aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
[17] In a later decision in 1976, the Supreme Court of California again held the state's death penalty statute was unconstitutional as it did not allow the defendant to enter mitigating evidence.
[19] On November 4, 1986, three members of the state supreme court were ousted from office by voters after a high-profile campaign that cited their categorical opposition to the death penalty.
She reviewed a total of 64 capital cases appealed to the court, in each instance issuing a decision overturning the death penalty that had been imposed at trial.
[21] This led Bird's critics to claim that she was substituting her own opinions and ideas for the laws and precedents upon which judicial decisions are supposed to be made.
[22] On April 21, 1992, the state carried out its first execution since 1967 by putting to death Robert Alton Harris for the murders of two teenage boys in San Diego.
[25] During the term of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, the state carried out two prominent executions in less than five weeks, with Stanley Tookie Williams in December 2005 and Clarence Ray Allen in January 2006.
A month later, in February 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy D. Fogel blocked the execution of convicted murderer Michael Morales because of a lawsuit against the lethal injection protocol.
[26] It was argued that if the three-drug lethal injection procedure were administered incorrectly, it could lead to suffering for the condemned, potentially constituting cruel and unusual punishment.
The case led to a de facto moratorium of capital punishment in California as the state was unable to obtain the services of a licensed medical professional to carry out the execution.
[34] The measure, which became Proposition 34, would replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, require people sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole to work in order to pay restitution to victims' families, and allocate approximately $30 million per year for three years to police departments for the purpose of solving open murder and rape cases.
[37] On July 16, 2014, federal judge Cormac J. Carney of the United States District Court ruled that California's death penalty system is unconstitutional because it is arbitrary and plagued with delay.
[38][39] In February 2015, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang ruled that state law compelled the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to develop a way to execute inmates by lethal injection.
Supporters of capital punishment blamed the nearly three-year wait for a new protocol on "lack of political will"[40] and attempt to render the death penalty "impractical and then argue for repeal on the grounds of practicality".
The other initiative, Proposition 66, provides the streamlining of the capital appeal process, and also requires death-row offenders to work in jail and pay restitution to victims families, something they were previously exempted from.
The amendment is coauthored by Assembymembers Laura Friedman (D-43), Mike Gipson (D-64), and Mark Stone (D-29), along with state senator Scott Wiener (D-11).
Subsequent retrials on issues not unanimously decided upon occur at the discretion of the court, which may alternatively impose a sentence of 25 years in prison.
Inmates transferred will be required to work paid prison jobs, albeit that 70% of their wages will be withheld and designated as restitution to the families of the relevant victims.
[63] By February 5, 2025, all but 9 of the male inmates had been moved out of San Quentin, with the last group expected to transfer after completing medical and psychiatric programs.
[64] In 2008, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice criticized the high number of aggravating factors as giving to local prosecutors too much discretion in picking cases where they believe capital punishment is warranted.
[65] Columnist Charles Lane went further, and proposed that murder related to a felony other than rape should no longer be a capital crime when there is only one victim killed.
[66] In 2021, the California Committee on Revision of Penal Code unanimously voted to recommend that the Legislature to abolish capital punishment in the state.
A staff justified the vote by issuing a memorandum that states that "[e]liminating the death penalty is a critical step towards creating a fair and equitable justice system for all in California, as the ultimate punishment is plagued by legal, racial, bureaucratic, financial, geographic, and moral problems that have proven intractable.
"[67] The Field Research Corporation found in February 2004 that when asked how they personally felt about capital punishment, 68% supported it and 31% opposed it (6% offered no opinion).
"[69] A PPIC poll from September 2012 showed that 55% of all adults and 50% of likely voters prefer life in prison without the possibility of parole over the death penalty when given the choice.
[71] A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll in 2019 found that 61% of California's registered voters supported the death penalty, with 39% opposed.
[72] A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll in April 2021 found that 44% of California's registered voters supported a proposed 2022 constitutional amendment to abolish the death penalty, with 35% opposed and 21% undecided.
