SB 1025: Habeas Corpus Reform
SB 1025 reduces the gridlock on California's death row by offering a commonsense, long-overdue solution to California's broken capital appellate system that will help expedite the process of justice for both victims and inmates. SB 1025 will develop procedures for habeas petitions to begin in superior courts, where claims can be processed quickly and efficiently by a tribunal more appropriately suited to investigate habeas claims.
California's death penalty system is dysfunctional. Inmates sentenced to death in California wait an average of 18 years for execution, well above the national average of 12 years. This unacceptable delay of justice is caused in large part by lengthy delays between the sentence of death and the appointment of qualified counsel to litigate the appeal.
Capital habeas petitions are filed directly in the California Supreme Court, a costly, ineffective practice that overloads the Court and detracts from its principal duties. As a result, California taxpayers waste millions of dollars annually to fund a broken system that offers no justice to victims or expedient court proceedings for the condemned. Another serious obstacle to death penalty implementation is the lack of qualified counsel to litigate capital appeals. Of almost 700 California death row inmates, 300 lack habeas counsel. The average wait for a habeas corpus attorney to be appointed is 10 years.
SB 1025 develops procedures for state habeas petitions to begin in California's superior courts. Because habeas appeals involve extensive fact-finding and investigative duties that appellate courts are ill-equipped to handle, this proposal would both streamline the appellate process and ensure that habeas claims are efficiently and accurately resolved.
SB 1025 offers a step toward reforming California's faltering death penalty by developing a more efficient system for state habeas appeals. SB meets the policy objectives of saving taxpayer money, reducing inefficiency in the criminal justice system and safeguarding the rights both of victims to see punishment for heinous crimes swiftly carried out and the condemned to a speedy resolution of post-conviction appellate claims.
SCA 27: Direct Appeal in Capital Cases
SCA 27 amends the California constitution to give the California Supreme Court the ability to transfer capital cases to the Courts of Appeal for decision. The California Supreme Court would then review the appellate opinion. Granting California's state appellate courts the jurisdiction to hear capital appeals with discretionary review by the California Supreme Court would streamline the capital appellate process to the benefit of victims of heinous crimes.
The California capital punishment appellate system is severely dysfunctional, resulting in an unacceptable delay of justice for victims and citizens and an inefficient use of scarce public resources during a budgetary crisis. According to Focus on California, taxpayers spend $145,000 annually on each death row inmate. The average stay for California's 700-member death row population is 18 years, costing the state $137.7 million annually.
A major source of death row gridlock is the burdensome constitutional requirement that all capital appeals regardless of merit must be exclusively reviewed by the California Supreme Court. SCA 27 offers the condemned review of claims and discretionary access to the highest court in the state, allowing the California Supreme Court to focus only on those cases that raise pressing legal issues. Further, the Courts of Appeal have over thirty years of capital case precedent in which to ground their opinions.
Death row inmates in California wait 18 years for execution, well above the national average of 12 years. This unacceptable delay of a justly deserved punishment is largely a result of appellate gridlock, and nowhere is this problem graver than at the California Supreme Court. Every day that legislators fail to provide our death penalty system with the necessary safeguards and resources it needs to function, taxpayers bleed green, families are left grieving and the public is endangered.
Chief Justice Ron George argues that the death penalty jeopardizes the Court's capacity to resolve other statewide legal issues and settle appellate conflicts, which is its primary obligation. SCA 27 offers a long-overdue constitutional change that will offer closure and justice in an efficient, timely manner to the families of murder victims and the California public. SCA 27 will streamline the death penalty process and offer the prompt court proceedings that California citizens and families of murder victims deserve.
SB 1018: Single Drug Lethal Injection Procedure
SB 1018 offers a smart, simple solution to the constitutional concerns raised in Morales v. Tilton (2006) over California's three-drug lethal injection procedure. Instead of merely tweaking the California lethal injection protocol and exposing the CDCR to costly, time consuming litigation, this bill proposes that California amend its lethal injection protocol to use only a lethal dose of anesthetic.
In 2006, a federal judge found in Morales that several correctable deficiencies in California's death penalty system created an unconstitutional risk of cruel and unusual punishment. After listing several benchmarks that needed to be met, the judge observed that the state could "eliminate any constitutional concerns" by "removal of [two drugs in the three-drug cocktail] from the lethal injection protocol, with the execution accomplished solely by an anesthetic."
Simultaneously, Ohio responded to similar litigation by changing its lethal injection method to a sole dosage of thiopental. The new procedure was upheld in court, and Ohio has since performed three executions without incident. According to Mark Dershwitz, the vice chair of anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts, this method leaves "no risk whatsoever of the inmate experiencing pain or suffering due to the effects of pancuronium bromide or potassium chloride."
SB 1018 commands CDCR to alter its lethal injection protocol to a single lethal dose of an appropriate anesthetic. In conjunction with the newly revised lethal injection protocol that CDCR has introduced in January, this change would practically resolve cruel and unusual punishment concerns associated with lethal injection.
SB 1018 offers a humane, tested procedure that has been described by the Death Penalty Information Center and the UC Berkeley Death Penalty Clinic as a "better alternative" and "an important step."
Further, SB 1018 is a timely response to the fact that California's death penalty system is dysfunctional. Inmates sentenced to death in California wait an average of 17 years for execution, well above the national average of 12 years. This unacceptable delay of justice is largely a result of protracted appeals, many of which involve challenges to the three-drug cocktail. By following the federal judge's orders and establishing a one-drug lethal injection process, SB 1018 will streamline the death penalty process and ensure that justice for heinous crimes is swiftly carried out.
