Santa Clara, California County District Attorney Requests Resentencing for County’s Entire Death Row

On April 5, 2024, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen filed peti­tions ask­ing the coun­ty supe­ri­or court to resen­tence 15 death-sen­tenced men from his coun­ty to sen­tences of life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty for parole. These peti­tions were filed four years after DA Rosen announced his office would no longer seek the death penal­ty, a deci­sion part­ly in response to nation­wide calls for crim­i­nal legal reform fol­low­ing the mur­der of George Floyd. At the time, DA Rosen said that Mr. Floyd’s death had ​“changed our coun­try and our com­mu­ni­ty… It has changed my office. It has changed me.” DA Rosen also not­ed that his views about the death penal­ty were affect­ed by vis­its to the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, which traces the his­to­ry of slav­ery through mass incar­cer­a­tion of peo­ple of col­or. ​“I went there sup­port­ing the death penal­ty,” he told the Los Angeles Times. ​“I left not so sure anymore.”

In fil­ings sub­mit­ted to the Santa Clara Superior Court, DA Rosen cit­ed the ​“dimin­ish­ing like­li­hood” of any exe­cu­tions because of Governor Gavin Newsom’s exe­cu­tion mora­to­ri­um as well as the ​“irre­versible” nature of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and inabil­i­ty to guar­an­tee due process to all defen­dants. ​“The state is dis­man­tling death row, and it is time we rec­og­nize this real­i­ty and dis­man­tle these sen­tences as well,” stat­ed DA Rosen in one of the resen­tenc­ing motions. Acknowledging that the defen­dants are not the only peo­ple impact­ed by his deci­sion, DA Rosen not­ed in all peti­tions that ​“the endur­ing and inde­scrib­able pain” felt by crime vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and friends ​“can­not be dis­count­ed or ignored.”

As a pros­e­cu­tor, DA Rosen pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and sought the death penal­ty at tri­al on sev­er­al occa­sions but stopped doing so because of what he said was a lack of fair­ness in the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem. ​“I used to think that in a per­fect world, in a per­fect­ly fair soci­ety, there could be some crimes so hor­ri­ble and awful that the appro­pri­ate response would be death,” he said. ​“But I’ve come to know what we all know — we don’t live in a per­fect world where every­thing is fair. I just began to feel like we don’t have the moral author­i­ty to exe­cute some­one.” If the court grants the motions, DA Rosen said his office will have greater resources to focus on local crime and offer clo­sure to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies who have wait­ed for decades to see final­i­ty in their family-member’s case.

Death penal­ty crit­ics have com­mend­ed DA Rosen’s efforts, with Professor Elisabeth Semel, direc­tor of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley, call­ing his actions ​“high­ly sig­nif­i­cant.” Approximately 35% of peo­ple on California’s death row are Black, despite Black peo­ple account­ing for just about 5% of all Californian res­i­dents. About 26% of death row inmates are Hispanic or Mexican, and near­ly 70% of California’s death row pop­u­la­tion are peo­ple of col­or. Research shows that not only is the race of the defen­dant impor­tant in sen­tenc­ing, but also that the race of the vic­tim and atti­tudes of the pros­e­cu­tor affect deci­sions to seek a death sen­tence. People accused of killing a white per­son are more like­ly to be tried cap­i­tal­ly than those being tried for the mur­der of a per­son of col­or. ​“There is noth­ing, noth­ing that these cas­es have more in com­mon than racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, whether we are talk­ing about priv­i­leg­ing white vic­tims, mean­ing seek­ing the death penal­ty in white crime, or dis­ad­van­tag­ing Black clients,” Professor Semel said. Bishop Oscar Cantú of the Diocese of San Jose is also ​“very pleased” with DA Rosen’s deci­sion. ​“How we treat the worst of us says some­thing about us as well,” said Bishop Cantú. ​“Those on death row are poor, almost all of them. Most of them are peo­ple of col­or. How jus­tice is admin­is­tered is dubi­ous and trou­bling. We don’t need cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment; we’re bet­ter off with­out it as a society.

During his 13 years as District Attorney of Santa Clara County, Mr. Rosen secured just one death sen­tence. In 2011, a coun­ty judge sen­tenced Melvin Forte to death based on a 2010 jury rec­om­men­da­tion for death. Rodrigo Paniagua Jr. was sen­tenced to death by a jury days before the jury in Mr. Forte’s case rec­om­mend­ed death. Since 2011, DA Rosen’s office sought the death penal­ty four times, with only two of those cas­es result­ing in cap­i­tal tri­als. He is con­fi­dent that the resen­tenc­ing motions will be legal­ly con­sid­ered, as California law allows dis­trict attor­neys to rec­om­mend sen­tenc­ing changes if the defen­dant is not an ​“unrea­son­able risk of dan­ger” to soci­ety. DA Rosen’s office believes that all defen­dants will fall under this rule, as resen­tenc­ing would not entail release from prison. ​“We took the first step four years ago…This is the sec­ond and final step,” DA Rosen said.