The Fresno County District Attorney’s office has announced that it is drop­ping the death penal­ty against Douglas Stankewitz (pic­tured), California’s longest-serv­ing death-row pris­on­er. After review­ing exten­sive mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence that Stankewitz’s tri­al coun­sel had failed to inves­ti­gate, Fresno pros­e­cu­tors announced on April 19, 2019 that a sen­tence of life with­out parole would be ​“fair and just” in Stankewitz’s case and that they will not pur­sue a third cap­i­tal-sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ing against him.

Stankewitz was first con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1978 for a mur­der com­mit­ted while he was 19 years old. He was the first per­son sent to California’s death row after the state reestab­lished the death penal­ty ear­li­er that year. Prior to tri­al, Stankewitz’s tri­al lawyer asked the court to con­duct a hear­ing on his client’s com­pe­ten­cy to stand tri­al. The court-appoint­ed psy­chi­a­trist report­ed that Stankewitz suf­fered from ​“para­noid delu­sions that his pub­lic defend­er was in col­lu­sion with the pros­e­cu­tor” and that this delu­sion ​“inter­fered with his abil­i­ty to coop­er­ate in the con­duct of his defense.” Nonetheless, the tri­al court refused to con­duct a com­pe­ten­cy hear­ing and Stankewitz was tried, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to death. The California Supreme Court over­turned his con­vic­tion in 1982 based upon doubts about Stankewitz’s com­pe­ten­cy. Before his retri­al, the tri­al court found an irrepara­ble con­flict exist­ed between Stankewitz and his pub­lic defend­er and appoint­ed pri­vate coun­sel, Hugh Goodwin, as sub­sti­tute coun­sel. Despite believ­ing that Stankewitz was incom­pe­tent, Goodwin failed to obtain a psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of his client. Stankewitz was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death a second time.

More than 25 years lat­er, a California fed­er­al dis­trict court over­turned that death sen­tence based upon Goodwin’s fail­ure to inves­ti­gate and present a broad range of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence of intel­lec­tu­al impair­ment, abuse, neglect, and brain dam­age. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Stankewitz v. Wong, upheld the dis­trict court’s deci­sion in 2012. The court wrote that Goodwin pre­sent­ed a ​“pal­try” penal­ty-phase defense that pri­mar­i­ly ​“focused … on the ​‘pow­er of God’ to help per­sons change their lives” and that praised the work of prison chaplains.

The avail­able mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence showed that Stankewitz had expe­ri­enced a deeply trau­mat­ic upbring­ing, endur­ing a vari­ety of abus­es com­mon among death-row pris­on­ers. Stankewitz was born into pover­ty in a home with­out elec­tric­i­ty or run­ning water, where there was rarely enough food for all ten chil­dren. While she was preg­nant with him, Stankewitz’s moth­er drank alco­hol exces­sive­ly, and his father hit her in the abdomen. His par­ents and old­er sib­lings abused him phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, and by age five, he had start­ed sniff­ing paint. Alcohol and drug abuse soon fol­lowed. His old­er sib­lings abused him so severe­ly that he has ​“a sub­stan­tial inden­ta­tion on his cra­ni­um.” He was removed from his home at age six because his moth­er beat him with an elec­tri­cal cord and was sent to jail. From then until his arrest at age 19, he was in var­i­ous forms of gov­ern­ment care, where he con­tin­ued to expe­ri­ence abuse. He was sex­u­al­ly abused, beat­en, unnec­es­sar­i­ly drugged, tied to beds, and delib­er­ate­ly tor­tured. Mental health exam­i­na­tions have shown that he is bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and has sig­nif­i­cant brain dys­func­tion, like­ly as a result of fetal alco­hol syn­drome and severe childhood trauma.

Rather than extend the case fur­ther, pros­e­cu­tors ulti­mate­ly agreed that this mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence jus­ti­fied a life sentence.

(Brianna Calix, No death penal­ty for con­vict­ed killer Douglas Stankewitz in 1978 mur­der, says Fresno DA, The Fresno Bee, April 19, 2019; Maura Dolan, Murderer’s death sen­tence over­turned, Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2012.) Read the California Supreme Court’s 1982 deci­sion in People v. Stankewitz and the deci­sion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Stankewitz v. Wong. See Arbitrariness and Representation.

Citation Guide