California Supreme Court Hears Case That Could Undo Hundreds of State Death Sentences

The California Supreme Court heard oral argu­ment on June 2, 2021 in a cap­i­tal case whose out­come could affect the fate of hun­dreds of pris­on­ers on the state’s death row. Supported by friend-of-the-court briefs by California Governor Gavin Newsom and an alliance of pro­gres­sive California dis­trict attor­neys, lawyers for death row pris­on­er Don’te McDaniel argued to the court that California’s cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing scheme is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because it fails to require that cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing juries reach a unan­i­mous deter­mi­na­tion of each of the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors in a case that jus­ti­fy impos­ing a death sen­tence and do so beyond a reasonable doubt.

Though a seem­ing­ly tech­ni­cal issue, it has a poten­tial­ly huge impact. Currently, California has 703 pris­on­ers on death row — which is by far the most in the nation. Depending on how the court rules, and if it applies the deci­sion to oth­er cas­es that have already com­plet­ed direct appeal, it could reverse hun­dreds of California death sentences. 

The United States Supreme Court ruled in June 2002 in Ring v. Arizona that the Sixth Amendment guar­an­tees cap­i­tal defen­dants the right to a jury tri­al, includ­ing the right to require the gov­ern­ment to per­suade jurors unan­i­mous­ly and beyond a rea­son­able doubt of all facts that are essen­tial to the deci­sion to impose the death penal­ty. McDaniel has argued that the California con­sti­tu­tion requires a sim­i­lar stan­dard with respect to the jury’s sentencing determination.

Arguing for McDaniel, deputy pub­lic defend­er Elias Batchelder told the court, ​“When crim­i­nal juries make fun­da­men­tal deci­sions … these deci­sions are held to the law’s high­est stan­dards, beyond a rea­son­able doubt and by a unan­i­mous vote.” Those high stan­dards are even more impor­tant in death penal­ty cas­es, he said, because “[a]s a soci­ety, we do not want peo­ple to be wrongfully executed.”

Deputy Attorney General Dana Muhammad Ali argued that the ulti­mate deter­mi­na­tion of whether to impose the death penal­ty in a giv­en case is ​“not a ques­tion of fact,” like the deter­mi­na­tion of a defendant’s guilt, but a moral deci­sion on ​“whether death is the appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment.” While she con­ced­ed that the una­nim­i­ty and beyond-a-rea­son­able-doubt stan­dards would make death sen­tences ​“more reli­able,” she said they are not required by California’s constitution.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who has imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in California, sub­mit­ted an ami­cus brief in sup­port of McDaniel. He urged the state supreme court to require juries to unan­i­mous­ly agree on aggra­vat­ing fac­tors, and to find them beyond a rea­son­able doubt. He said that doing so would reduce racial bias in the sen­tenc­ing process. During argu­ment, Batchelder cit­ed the governor’s brief, say­ing, ​“The governor’s ami­cus brief dis­cussed the high­ly coer­cive, some­times racial­ly fraught pres­sures that man­i­fest in the jury room. For a vari­ety of rea­sons, jurors some­times have strong doubts about the pro­pri­ety of a death ver­dict, and the rea­son­able doubt pro­tec­tion safe­guards the voic­es of minor­i­ty jurors in this coer­cive envi­ron­ment. There is ample empir­i­cal evi­dence that it not only ensures more thought­ful, but more respect­ful delib­er­a­tion.” Several California District Attorneys, includ­ing those from Los Angeles and San Francisco, also filed briefs favor­ing the higher standards.

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Los Angeles Times urged the court to reverse McDaniel’s sen­tence and ​“throw out the entire sys­tem.” ​“Beyond being skewed by racism, the sys­tem is poi­soned by human error and occa­sion­al­ly malfea­sance,” the edi­to­r­i­al argued. ​“It is as flawed as soci­ety itself, and it requires a lev­el of will­ful blind­ness to not rec­og­nize that. It can­not be fixed.”

Recent polling by the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that plu­ral­i­ties of Californians sup­port Governor Newsom’s mora­to­ri­um and the idea of repeal­ing the death penal­ty. Nearly half (48%) of vot­ers said they sup­port the mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, while 33% were opposed, and 19% had no opin­ion. Similarly, 44% said they would vote to repeal the state’s death penal­ty law, com­pared to 35% who said they would vote to keep it. However, more than one-fifth (21%) of vot­ers were unde­cid­ed on whether to keep or repeal the death penal­ty. Referenda to abol­ish California’s death penal­ty failed in 2012 (48% – 52%) and 2016 (46% – 54%), but nei­ther enjoyed the back­ing of a sitting governor.