Civil Rights Groups Accuse California District Attorneys of Unlawfully Interfering in Death Penalty Lawsuit

Five civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions have asked a California appeals court to block the efforts of three coun­ty dis­trict attor­neys to lift stays of exe­cu­tion agreed to by the state as part of a fed­er­al-court set­tle­ment of death-row pris­on­ers’ chal­lenge to California’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col. [UPDATE: On March 9, 2021, the First District Court of Appeals dis­missed the groups’ lawsuit.]

On March 5, 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement, Riverside All of Us Or None, Starting Over Inc., and Silicon Valley De-Bug filed a peti­tion for writ of man­date or pro­hi­bi­tion in California’s First District Court of Appeal to direct the dis­trict attor­neys of San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Mateo coun­ties ​“to refrain from inter­fer­ing in fed­er­al pris­on­er civ­il rights lit­i­ga­tion between peo­ple on death row and the State of California.” The orga­ni­za­tions’ peti­tion alleges that the DAs’ attempt to inter­vene in the fed­er­al law­suit exceeds the lim­it­ed author­i­ty California law affords county prosecutors.

“What the dis­trict attor­neys of San Bernardino, Riverside and San Mateo are doing is a brazen over­reach,” said Emi MacLean, a senior attor­ney with the ACLU of Northern California. ​“These DAs are rogue actors who seek to ignore the Constitution and cre­ate their own rules. Their law­less­ness cannot stand.”

California death-row pris­on­ers filed suit in 2006 chal­leng­ing the state’s lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col. In 2020, in the wake of the exe­cu­tion mora­to­ri­um announced by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019, the pris­on­ers and the state came to a stip­u­lat­ed res­o­lu­tion under which the lit­i­ga­tion is on hold as long as the mora­to­ri­um is in place. Before the res­o­lu­tion was reached, the dis­trict attor­neys for San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Mateo coun­ties sought to inter­vene in the lit­i­ga­tion, argu­ing that the California Attorney General was not ade­quate­ly rep­re­sent­ing their inter­ests. A fed­er­al dis­trict court denied their motion. In an appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the DAs explic­it­ly stat­ed that they are seek­ing to over­turn the res­o­lu­tion reached by the pris­on­ers and the state in order to expe­dite the exe­cu­tion of death-sentenced prisoners.

The peti­tion from the civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions argues that the DAs are over­step­ping their author­i­ty, in vio­la­tion of state court rul­ings that have repeat­ed­ly declared thar coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors may not inter­vene in civ­il lit­i­ga­tion with­out express per­mis­sion from the leg­is­la­ture. ​“No court has per­mit­ted dis­trict attor­neys to par­tic­i­pate in a fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit between pris­on­ers and state author­i­ties,” the peti­tion says, ​“let alone take posi­tions con­trary to those of the Governor (the supreme author­i­ty on exec­u­tive actions) and the Attorney General (the sole legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of state entities).”

MacLean told The Press-Enterprise, ​“They want to have a say in expe­dit­ing death sen­tences. It’s actu­al­ly a vio­la­tion of state law for pros­e­cu­tors to have this role.” Vonya Quarles, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Starting Over Inc., said in a state­ment, ​“It’s also a ques­tion of our human­i­ty — no DA should be per­mit­ted to over­rule the gov­er­nor in a blood­thirsty quest for executions.”

The District Attorneys argue that they have a right to pur­sue the exe­cu­tion of peo­ple sen­tenced to death in their juris­dic­tions. ​“We have peo­ple who have com­plet­ed all of their appeals, and all we’re wait­ing for is the com­ple­tion of this law­suit,” said San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen M. Wagstaffe. ​“We just want to be able to weigh in and inter­vene. The attor­ney gen­er­al has tak­en their posi­tion on it. We just feel it needs to be pressed a lit­tle hard­er.” Wagstaffe assert­ed that inter­ven­tion is nec­es­sary to ​“seek clo­sure” in death-penal­ty cas­es. ​“This sort of stand­ing in quick­sand, going nowhere, that to me is a dis­ser­vice to the peo­ple and dis­ser­vice to the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims,” he said.

MacLean called the DAs attempt to inter­vene an unlaw­ful waste of tax­pay­er mon­ey. ​“Right now there’s a big ques­tion about the role of dis­trict attor­neys in the mass incar­cer­a­tion we see around us and about how our jus­tice sys­tem should oper­ate,” MacLean said. The DAs’ inter­ven­tion in the fed­er­al suit, the peti­tion says, ​“is improp­er. The DAs are act­ing out­side of their con­sti­tu­tion­al and statu­to­ry author­i­ty to chal­lenge the nego­ti­at­ed res­o­lu­tion of a dis­pute over the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of California’s method of execution.”