The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice exam­ined the state’s death penal­ty on January 10 in an effort to iden­ti­fy incon­sis­ten­cies in its appli­ca­tion and reforms for improv­ing the sys­tem. California has the largest death row in the coun­try and the back­log of cas­es has pre­sent­ed sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems in ensur­ing time­ly appeals and lim­it­ing costs. Legal experts sug­gest­ed that the state needs to nar­row its def­i­n­i­tion of what con­sti­tutes a cap­i­tal crime. The state now has 33 ​“spe­cial cir­cum­stance” crimes that allow pros­e­cu­tors to seek the death penal­ty.

Noting that end­ing the death penal­ty in the state and replac­ing it with life with­out parole would save the state con­sid­er­able mon­ey, some com­mis­sion mem­bers declared that the whole death penal­ty process needs rethink­ing. Currently, the aver­age inmate has been on California’s death row for 17 years, almost dou­ble the nation­al aver­age. The state has exe­cut­ed 13 inmates since rein­stat­ing the pun­ish­ment over 30 years ago.

Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan tes­ti­fied that the expan­sive list of crimes that qual­i­fy for the death penal­ty is the root cause of California’s back­logged sys­tem. ​“You are hav­ing a prob­lem in this state because the front end of the sys­tem is over­loaded,” he said.

Chief Justice Ronald George told the com­mis­sion that he con­sid­ers the over­whelm­ing amount of death penal­ty appeals the state Supreme Court reviews ​“a real cri­sis” that, if not fixed, would ​“under­mine the rule of law.” He recent­ly pushed a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment that would spread the cas­es among the state’s 105 appel­late jus­tices. California vot­ers could see this issue on the bal­lot as soon as November. The Commission will meet again on February 20 in Los Angeles.

(“Legal experts weigh death penal­ty reform,” by Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2008). See also San Jose Mercury News, Jan. 11, 2008. Costs and Arbitrariness.

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