At a hear­ing of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice held in Los Angeles, the moth­er of a mur­der vic­tim tes­ti­fied about why she believed the death penal­ty does not serve vic­tims’ needs. Aba Gayle’s daugh­ter, Catherine Blount, was a teenag­er when she was mur­dered in 1980 by Douglas Mickey. At first, Gayle told the Commission, ​“The dis­trict attor­ney assured me that the exe­cu­tion of the man respon­si­ble for Catherine’s mur­der would help me heal, and for many years I believed him.” But in 1988, Gayle changed her mind and now no longer wants the defen­dant to be exe­cut­ed. Mickey’s death sen­tence was over­turned in 2006 due to the inef­fec­tive­ness of his defense lawyer, but the D.A. is still seek­ing the death penal­ty against him.

During the hear­ing on how to address the prob­lems in the death penal­ty sys­tem, pros­e­cu­tors stat­ed that they need quick­er appeals and would like to amend California’s Constitution to trans­fer ini­tial reviews of death penal­ty cas­es to state appeals courts. Defense attor­neys stat­ed that trans­fer­ring ini­tial reviews would only make the process more cum­ber­some, and sug­gest­ed that the state short­en the list of crimes that qual­i­fy for the death penal­ty instead.

With 669 inmates, California has the largest death row pop­u­la­tion in the coun­try, and it can take as long as two decades for some inmates to com­plete their appeal.

Gayle tes­ti­fied about her expe­ri­ences with the death penal­ty at the hear­ings, includ­ing her requests to the D.A. ​“I told him I would be sat­is­fied with a life sen­tence,” she said. ​“I did not want state-sanc­tioned mur­der to tar­nish the life of my beau­ti­ful child.”
(“Lawyers divid­ed on death penal­ty sys­tem,” by Henry Weinstein, Los Angeles Times, February 21, 2008). See Victims and New Voices.

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