[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- CALIFORNIA

[Joerg Sommer]

death penalty news

September 22, 2005


CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty biased, study says - Report raises 
questions about race, class equality in sentencing

The murder of a white person, especially in 
nonurban counties, is far more likely to result 
in a California death sentence than urban crimes 
against minorities, according to a new study.

Death penalty opponents say this new evidence 
that race and geography dictate how the state 
metes out capital punishment proves the system is 
skewed and must be halted at least until it's fixed.

The study, in a forthcoming issue of the Santa 
Clara Law Review, reviewed all California 
homicides committed from the start of 1990 
through the end of 1999, using data from the FBI 
and the state. Among its key findings:

-Of 11 men executed since the state reinstated 
its death penalty in 1978, nine — or 82 percent — 
were convicted of killing white victims, while 
only 27.6 percent of murder victims are white.

-In the 1990s, those who murdered whites were 
more than four times as likely to be sentenced to 
death than those who murdered Latinos and more 
than three times as likely to be sentenced to 
death than those who murdered African Americans.

-A first-degree murder convict in a predominantly 
white, rural county was more than three times as 
likely to be sentenced to death than a person 
convicted of a similar crime in a diverse, urban 
county such as Los Angeles, which has the state's highest number of homicides.

Santa Clara University Law School Dean Donald 
Polden, submitted the report Wednesday to the 
California Commission on the Fair Administration 
of Justice, which holds its second meeting next week in Sacramento.

Polden's letter to the commission says the study 
— authored by a Northeastern University research 
scientist and a University of Colorado sociology 
professor — "raises significant questions about 
whether the death penalty is being administered fairly in this state."

Advocacy groups want the commission to act on this immediately.

"This study demonstrates for the first time that 
race and place determine who is sentenced to die 
in the state of California," said Erin Callahan, 
Amnesty International USA's western regional director, in a news release.

Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director 
for the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Northern California, said the commission must 
"determine where the bias enters the system. Is 
it when the prosecutor decides to seek the death 
penalty or when a jury chooses to sentence a person to death?"

And Death Penalty Focus program director Stefanie 
Faucher said the state must halt executions until these issues are addressed.

The state Senate formed the 14-member Justice 
Commission in 2004 to study causes and prevalence 
of wrongful convictions and wrongful executions 
in California, and to find ways to improve the 
system's fairness and accuracy. It has a Dec. 31, 
2007, deadline to report its findings and 
recommendations to the governor and Legislature.

California's death row is the nation's largest, 
with 647 condemned inmates — about 39 percent 
white, 35 percent African American and 19 percent 
Latino. The state has executed 11 since reinstating its death penalty in 1978.

See the study at http://www.aclunc.org/dp/death—penalty—study.pdf.

(source: Inside Bay Area)