Entries tagged with “Gavin Newsom”
Policy Issues
Race
,May 09, 2024
Articles of Interest: Los Angeles Times Editorial Board Says Systemic Racism in California Death Penalty Is Just One of Many Reasons for Abolition
In a May 7, 2024 editorial, the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board cites the deeply engrained racial disparities in the California death penalty system and how those facts led them to conclude that “even if the state could perform painless and anxiety-free executions and racial biases were eliminated, the death penalty would still be wrong.” “Black defendants were 4.6 to 8.7 times more likely to be sentenced to death than other defendants facing similar charges” the Board notes, and “Latinos…
Policy Issues
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,Religion
,Apr 26, 2024
Federal Judge Orders Alameda County District Attorney to Review 35 Capital Cases Following Disclosure of Prosecutorial Misconduct in Jury Selection
On April 22, 2024, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price announced that her office was ordered by a federal judge to review 35 death penalty convictions after the disclosure of evidence that several prosecutors intentionally excluded Black and Jewish people from serving on a capital murder trial in 1995. In a press conference, DA Price indicated that her office discovered the handwritten notes of former prosecutors that include discriminatory jury selection tactics, suggesting…
Policy Issues
Race
,Apr 10, 2024
Lawsuit Filed at the California Supreme Court Alleges Racist Application of the Death Penalty Violates the State Constitution
On April 9, 2024, the California Office of the State Public Defender, along with several civil rights groups, filed an extraordinary writ petition at the California Supreme Court arguing that the state’s capital punishment system violates the state’s Constitution because of its racially biased implementation. In 2021, the California Committee on Revision of the Penal Code confirmed that racial bias is entrenched in the state’s death penalty system. “The California Constitution does not permit…
Policy Issues
Race
,Apr 09, 2024
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…
Policy Issues
Victims' Families
,New Voices
,Oct 04, 2023
LA District Attorney Won’t Pursue the Death Penalty Because it “Doesn’t Serve as a Deterrent” and “Does Not Bring People Back”
On September 26, 2023, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced that he would not seek the death penalty in the case of slain Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer. “If I thought that the death penalty was going to stop people from committing brutal murders, I would seek it. But we know that it won’t,” said Gascón at a news conference, “The reality is that the death penalty doesn’t serve as a deterrent, and the death penalty does not bring people back. …What I can assure…
Death Row
May 04, 2023
NEW PERSPECTIVES: “The Last Days of Death Row in California”
A recent article in the The Guardian described the reactions of some of the California prisoners who have been moved from San Quentin’s death row and transferred to other facilities around the state. The prisoners are still under a sentence of death, but in 2019 Governor Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions and has dismantled the execution…
Policy Issues
Sentencing Alternatives
,Conditions on Death Row
,Mar 21, 2023
California to Close San Quentin’s Death Row as Part of a Broader Prison Reform
Death-sentenced prisoners in California will be moved out of San Quentin State Prison (pictured) and placed in other maximum security facilities, as part of a broad plan announced by Governor Gavin Newsom on March 17, 2023. The governor seeks to “transform” the state’s oldest prison into “a one-of-a-kind facility focused on improving public safety through rehabilitation and education.” The state launched a pilot program in 2020 allowing some death-row prisoners to voluntarily move to other…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Jan 30, 2023
Attorneys for Kevin Cooper Respond to Special Counsel Report
Kevin Cooper (pictured) is a death-row prisoner in California who was convicted of murdering four people in 1985. He has maintained his innocence of the offense. On January 13, 2023, a special counsel appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to conduct an independent investigation of Cooper’s case released a report dismissing his claims of innocence, stating, “The evidence of Cooper’s guilt is extensive and…
Policy Issues
Mental Illness
,Race
,Recent Legislative Activity
,Oct 03, 2022
California Governor Signs into Law Bill Expanding Racial Justice Act to Prisoners Already on Death Row
California Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) has signed into law a bill that provides death-row prisoners relief from convictions or death sentences obtained “on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national…
Death Row
Feb 01, 2022
California Governor Gavin Newsom Orders Dismantling of State’s Death Row
California’s death row — the largest in the country — will be dismantled within two years, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on January 31,…
Policy Issues
Arbitrariness
,Sep 10, 2021
California Supreme Court Upholds Death-Penalty Statute Against Challenge That Could Have Overturned Hundreds of Death Sentences
The California Supreme Court has upheld the state’s death-penalty statute against a constitutional challenge that had the potential to overturn the sentences of hundreds of people on California’s death row. In a unanimous ruling issued August 26, 2021 in People v. McDaniel, the court held that a capital jury need not unanimously agree to the existence of an aggravating circumstance before weighing it in the sentencing decision so long as every juror found that the…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Sep 01, 2021
California Court Rejects Challenge to Execution Moratorium
A California trial court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservative media commentator John V. Lacy that had challenged the constitutionality of the March 2019 executive order by Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) declaring a moratorium on executions in the…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Jun 01, 2021
California Gov. Gavin Newsom Orders Investigation into Kevin Cooper Capital Murder Conviction
California Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered an independent investigation into the case of Kevin Cooper, who has consistently maintained his innocence in the 1983 quadruple-murder for which he was sentenced to death. Newsom’s May 28, 2021 executive order appoints the law firm Morrison and Foerster, LLP as Special Counsel to the California Board of Parole Hearings and directs the firm to “conduct a full review of the trial and appellate records in [Cooper’s]…
Apr 01, 2021
Newsom Appoints Legislator Who Co-Authored Constitutional Amendment Against Death Penalty to be California’s Attorney General
California Governor Gavin Newsom has appointed Rob Bonta (pictured), a state legislator who co-authored a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban capital punishment, as California’s attorney general. Bonta fills the vacancy created by President Joe Biden’s appointment of former state attorney general Xavier Becerra as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human…
Policy Issues
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Oct 28, 2020
California Governor, 6 District Attorneys File Briefs Saying State’s Death Penalty is Arbitrary and ‘Infected by Racism’
Calling California capital sentencing proceedings “infected by racism,” Governor Gavin Newsom (pictured) has filed a brief in the California Supreme Court supporting a death-row prisoner’s claim that capital punishment as currently practiced in the state violates the California penal code and the state…
Policy Issues
Race
,Sentencing Data
,Jan 21, 2020
DPIC Analysis: Racial Disparities Persisted in U.S. Death Sentences and Executions in 2019
A DPIC analysis of executions and new death sentences in 2019 has found that even as death penalty usage declined across the United States, racial disparities in its application…