California Supreme Court Upholds Death-Penalty Statute Against Challenge That Could Have Overturned Hundreds of Death Sentences

The California Supreme Court has upheld the state’s death-penal­ty statute against a con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge that had the poten­tial to over­turn the sen­tences of hun­dreds of peo­ple on California’s death row. In a unan­i­mous rul­ing issued August 26, 2021 in People v. McDaniel, the court held that a cap­i­tal jury need not unan­i­mous­ly agree to the exis­tence of an aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance before weigh­ing it in the sen­tenc­ing deci­sion so long as every juror found that the pros­e­cu­tion had proven at least one aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance that jus­ti­fied a death sen­tence beyond a reasonable doubt.

The issue came to the court in the case of Don’te Lamont McDaniel, who was con­vict­ed of two Los Angeles gang-relat­ed mur­ders in 2008. At sen­tenc­ing, McDaniel’s jury dead­locked on whether to rec­om­mend a life sen­tence or the death penal­ty. A sec­ond jury impan­eled to retry the sen­tenc­ing phase delib­er­at­ed for four days before unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend­ing the death penalty. 

McDaniel argued that U.S. Supreme Court case law required every cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing jury to agree that an aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance had been proven before any juror could con­sid­er that cir­cum­stance and that the jury could impose a death sen­tence only if it unan­i­mous­ly agreed that aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances out­weighed mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances beyond a rea­son­able doubt. His argu­ment had the poten­tial to over­turn near­ly every California death sen­tence in which a jury had been impan­eled. As of September 3, 2021, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation report­ed 697 peo­ple on the state’s death row.

McDaniel’s case drew sup­port­ing briefs from Governor Gavin Newsom and six pro­gres­sive dis­trict attor­neys in the state, includ­ing Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and George Gascón in Los Angeles. It was the first time any sit­ting gov­er­nor in California had filed a brief in sup­port of a death-row pris­on­er. Newsom argued that the state’s death penal­ty ​“was infect­ed by racism” and that absence of a require­ment of unan­i­mous jury sen­tenc­ing beyond a rea­son­able doubt con­tributed to sys­temic arbi­trari­ness and discrimination.

Writing for the court, Justice Goodwin Liu said that under exist­ing California deci­sions on the issue, “[t]he jury’s ulti­mate deci­sion select­ing the penal­ty in a cap­i­tal case does not con­sti­tute ​‘fact-find­ing,’” and there­fore each juror could sep­a­rate­ly deter­mine the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for a death sen­tence. In a sep­a­rate con­cur­ring opin­ion, Liu wrote, ​“There is a seri­ous ques­tion whether our cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing scheme is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al ….” He said, ​“Given the stakes for cap­i­tal defen­dants, the pros­e­cu­tion, and the jus­tice sys­tem, I urge this court, as well as oth­er respon­si­ble offi­cials sworn to uphold the Constitution, to revis­it this issue at an appro­pri­ate time.” However, he said, McDaniel’s case was not the appro­pri­ate vehi­cle for address­ing that issue. 

The Right to Jury Fact-Finding in Capital Sentencing Proceedings

The United States Supreme Court ruled in March 2000 in Apprendi v. New Jersey that the Sixth Amendment pro­vides a defen­dant the right to a unan­i­mous jury deter­mi­na­tion, beyond a rea­son­able doubt, of ​“any fact (oth­er than pri­or con­vic­tion) that increas­es the max­i­mum penal­ty for a crime.” Two years lat­er, in Ring v. Arizona, the Court held that the penal­ty phase of a cap­i­tal tri­al fell with­in the Sixth Amendment jury guar­an­tee and that a cap­i­tal defendant’s right to a jury tri­al includ­ed the right to require the gov­ern­ment to prove beyond a rea­son­able doubt every fact nec­es­sary to impose the death penalty. 

The court con­fined its dis­cus­sion to the scope of the right to a penal­ty-phase jury, sep­a­rate­ly address­ing the ques­tions of una­nim­i­ty and proof beyond a rea­son­able doubt. Ultimately, it ruled that nei­ther were required. Lui wrote that nei­ther the California con­sti­tu­tion nor state law pro­vid­ed ​“a basis to require una­nim­i­ty in the jury’s deter­mi­na­tion of fac­tu­al­ly dis­put­ed aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances.” On the bur­den of proof issue, the court said: ​“Even if the jury tri­al right under [California’s con­sti­tu­tion] is applic­a­ble to the penal­ty phase of a cap­i­tal tri­al and encom­pass­es the right to fac­tu­al find­ings beyond a rea­son­able doubt, we do not under­stand it to require the penal­ty phase jury to select the appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

The court did not address the oth­er issues raised in Governor Newsom’s or the pros­e­cu­tors’ ami­cus briefs. ​“These claims,” the court wrote, ​“sound in equal pro­tec­tion, due process, or the Eighth Amendment’s pro­hi­bi­tion on cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment, and do not bear direct­ly on the spe­cif­ic state law ques­tions before us.” 

Elisabeth Semel, co-direc­tor of the UC Berkeley Death Penalty Clinic and co-author of Newsom’s legal brief, told the Associated Press, ​“It doesn’t change the fact that the death penal­ty sys­tem in California does dis­crim­i­nate against peo­ple of col­or, par­tic­u­lar­ly Black defen­dants. And there’s ample data to demonstrate that.”

On September 10, McDaniel’s lawyers filed a peti­tion seek­ing rear­gu­ment of the case.