OUTLIER COUNTIES: Los Angeles County Has Nation’s Largest — And Still Expanding — Death Row

Los Angeles County, California is the home of the nation’s largest death row, one that sta­tis­tics show con­tin­ues to rapid­ly grow. In January 2013, Los Angeles was respon­si­ble for more death row pris­on­ers than any oth­er coun­ty in the United States, and it has ranked as one of the two most pro­lif­ic coun­ties in impos­ing new death sen­tences each year since. The 31 death sen­tences imposed in the coun­ty between 2010 and 2015 are more than any oth­er U.S. coun­ty imposed dur­ing that peri­od and the four death sen­tences it has imposed so far in 2016 are more than have been imposed in any other county. 

According to the Fair Punishment Project report, Too Broken to Fix, the Los Angeles death sen­tences exhib­it seri­ous racial dis­par­i­ties: 94% of the 31 death sen­tences imposed between 2010 and 2015 were direct­ed at defen­dants of col­or. Although African Americans com­mit few­er than one-third of all Los Angeles County homi­cides, they com­prised 42% of those con­demned to death in this peri­od. 45% of the new death sen­tences were imposed on Latino defen­dants, 6% against Asian Americans or Asian Pacific Islanders. Only two death sen­tences were imposed on White defen­dants dur­ing this period. 

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, a 2014 study found that White jurors in south­ern California were sig­nif­i­cant­ly more like­ly to rec­om­mend death sen­tences for Latino defen­dants than White defen­dants, espe­cial­ly when only weak mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence was pre­sent­ed. But that is pre­cise­ly what the evi­dence sug­gests occurs in many Los Angeles County capital cases. 

The Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, which han­dles half of all cap­i­tal cas­es in the coun­ty, assigns its most expe­ri­enced attor­neys to death penal­ty cas­es and its clients are rarely sen­tenced to death. Of the 30 Los Angeles County death penal­ty appeals decid­ed by the California Supreme Court between 2006 and 2015, just one defen­dant was rep­re­sent­ed by the pub­lic defend­er’s office and three clients of the Alternate Public Defender, which takes about 20% of cas­es, were sen­tenced to death. However, court appoint­ed attor­neys — who han­dle the remain­ing 30% of cap­i­tal defen­dants — account­ed for 26 death ver­dicts, or 87% of the death sen­tences imposed in the county. 

While the pub­lic defend­ers pre­sent­ed one week’s worth of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence in the one case in which their client was sen­tenced to death, pri­vate attor­neys aver­aged just 2.4 days of mit­i­ga­tion on their cas­es in the same peri­od, includ­ing a num­ber of cas­es in which they pre­sent­ed less than a day of mitigating evidence. 

Two Former Los Angeles County District Attorneys, Gil Garcetti and John Van de Camp, have changed their views on the death penal­ty and spo­ken out about the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple, the high cost of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and the emo­tion­al toll on vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. (Click to enlarge map.)