Jury rules for state executions debated
In response to a rare inquiry from the state Supreme Court on the rules for death penalty trials in California, defense lawyers argued Wednesday that laws in effect since the 1970s violate defendants’ constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict on whether they should live or die.
“When criminal juries make fundamental decisions ... these decisions are held to the law’s highest standards, beyond a reasonable doubt and by a unanimous vote,” Elias Batchelder, a deputy public defender representing a Los Angeles man appealing his death sentence, told the justices. “As a society, we do not want people to be wrongfully executed.”
Those high standards were set by the state Constitution as early as the 1870s, Batchelder contended, but are violated by the state’s death penalty law in several ways: It allows each juror to decide which “aggravating factors” applied to the case, such as a defendant’s criminal record, gang connections, or the “heinous” nature of the killing; it does not require unanimous agreement on any of those factors; and, while it requires a unanimous sentencing verdict, it does not require jurors to reach that decision beyond a reasonable doubt, the strict standard that applies to convictions.
“Unanimity and proof beyond a reasonable doubt are a reliable answer to the most profound issue that we ask a juror to answer in any case, whether the person before them should live or die,” said attorney John Mills, representing a group of constitutional scholars.
The hearing followed the court’s unusual request that the opposing sides, and other interested parties, discuss whether standards for jury deliberations in California’s death penalty law violate state constitutional requirements for jury verdicts.
If the court found such violations, it could require a new penalty trial not only for Donte McDaniel of Los Angeles, whose lawyers had raised the issue, but also for about 285 condemned inmates whose sentences are awaiting the court’s review — or even for all 703 inmates on the nation’s largest Death Row.
In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom, who declared a moratorium on executions after taking office in 2019, became the first California chief executive to file arguments challenging the state’s application of the death penalty, contending it was both unfair and racially discriminatory. Several district attorneys, including those in San Francisco and Los Angeles, filed similar briefs, opposing the views of most county prosecutors. Law professors and activists on both sides of the issue have also weighed in.
But the court gave few indications of its intentions during Wednesday’s 75minute hearing. Only three of the seven justices asked any questions, and they did little to tip their hands — mostly observing, in the words of Justice Joshua Groban, that the line between jurors’ findings about the objective facts of the case and their moresubjective conclusion on the appropriate sentence was “pretty blurry.”
Justice Goodwin Liu, perhaps the court’s most liberal member, told Mills that the California court has never overturned a death sentence for reasons like those the defense was presenting and would have to reverse a number of precedents to invalidate the current procedures.
But Liu and Justice MarianoFlorentino Cuéllar seemed receptive to the defense argument that a death sentence is based on jurors’ findings of fact — about the crime and the defendant’s record — and therefore
“As a society, we do not want people to be wrongfully executed.”
Elias Batchelder, deputy public defender
must be decided beyond a reasonable doubt, rather than the current, moresubjective standard.
Otherwise, Cuéllar said, sentencing decisions in capital cases could be left to the trial judge, without jury deliberations.
But Deputy Attorney General Dana Muhammad Ali said the sentencing determination was “not a question of fact,” but instead a moral decision on “whether death is the appropriate punishment,” after jurors assess the facts.
That distinction, Groban told her, seems “pretty subtle.”
Ali, representing Attorney General Rob Bonta, who opposes the death penalty, said the standards urged by the defense “would approve our system of capital punishment and make it more reliable” but are not required by the state Constitution. She said they could be added to the law by California voters, who narrowly rejected ballot measures to repeal the death penalty in 2012 and 2016 and must approve any changes in the current law.
McDaniel was 24 when he and a companion, Kai Harris, entered a Los Angeles apartment in April 2004 to demand money for a gangrelated drug sale, according to prosecutors. Harris fatally shot two people, and McDaniel shot and wounded two others. Both were convicted of two murders and sentenced to death in 2009. Harris’ separate appeal is pending.
A ruling in People vs.
McDaniel, S171393, is due within 90 days.