Annual total of death sentences in California falls to 10

The prior two years had each seen capital punishment ordered for 29 criminals. Analysts say a broken appeals process is driving the trend, and some observers cite tight budgets prosecutors face.

by Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

December 29, 2011

The number of death sentences issued in California dropped this year to 10, one of the lowest levels since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1978.

The decline, from 29 in each of the last two years, may signal that the decades-long appeals process for capital convictions and a 6-year-old moratorium on executions have encouraged prosecutors to seek life sentences without the possibility of parole in more murder cases.

California's less frequent resort to the death penalty puts it roughly in line with a national trend that has seen such sentences decline by 75% in the last 15 years.

Legal analysts on both sides of the debate say a broken appeals process is driving the trend. Prosecutors faced with tight budgets have had to make tough choices about the time and money needed to pursue a death sentence, while some family members of murder victims have pressed them to pursue the swifter justice of lifelong imprisonment with no chance of getting out.

W. Scott Thorpe, head of the California District Attorneys Assn., said he couldn't be sure what drove the state's 66% drop in death sentences this past year. He noted that there has been a statewide decline in homicides and that local economic and public safety circumstances influence the 58 independently elected county district attorneys.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley secured four of the five death sentences he sought in murder prosecutions this year and 53 sentences of life without parole. L.A. County had eight death sentences last year and 13 the year before.

Cooley declined to attribute the lower number of capital prosecutions to economic concerns.

Some of the decrease in death sentences can be attributed to the electoral success of district attorney candidates who pledged to be more discerning in deciding which homicides should be prosecuted as capital cases. Riverside County imposed just two death sentences this year, compared with six in 2010. Dist. Atty. Paul Zellerbach said he is reviewing 56 capital cases that were pending when he took office in January.

"There's no question that the more capital cases you have, which require more work and effort on everyone's part, the more resources you're going to have to allocate to those cases. That's just a reality," said Zellerbach. "But that's not going to deter me from prosecuting a capital case if I believe the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors."

Zellerbach said he has told prosecutors that any case in which the death penalty is sought must be completed within three years, a resource-management edict that will cause a reduction in the volume of capital cases.

Legal experts who monitor capital punishment say the budget cuts imposed on local governments across the state have played a role in discouraging prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

"It would be stunning if prosecutors were not impacted by these developments. The financial issues just have to weigh significantly in some cases because prosecutors, defense lawyers and everyone involved in government in California has had to make extraordinarily difficult choices about how to spend the resources they have, and they are well aware of what capital cases cost," said Elisabeth Semel, a UC Berkeley law professor and founder of the school's death penalty clinic.

"Like every other state and county office, the district attorney's offices are feeling the pinch of the budget crisis and are painfully aware of how limited their resources are. They may be making different choices because of that," said Paula Mitchell, a Loyola Law School professor and coauthor of a study this year that estimated the cost of maintaining capital punishment in California since 1978 at $4 billion.

Mitchell and U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon estimated that the state spends $184 million a year on its death row inmates while the prospects for resuming executions recede amid complex legal challenges.

Those who support maintaining the death penalty as a sentencing option express frustration with a system that has carried out only 13 executions in 34 years.

"The fact that executions aren't being carried out has a discouraging effect" on prosecutors' willingness to push for a death penalty, said Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. The time and cost of prosecution and appeals continue to increase "as defendants and defense lawyers drag things out," he said.

Scheidegger said the state needs to keep the death penalty as an option because it causes some defendants to plead guilty in exchange for life without parole, leverage that wouldn't exist without the threat of execution.

That threat may remain illusory for years. A Marin County judge earlier this month threw out newly drafted lethal injection procedures, ruling that state officials ignored the law's requirement of meaningful public participation in the process. The judge also criticized corrections officials for failing to consider a one-drug execution method used by some states.

Nationwide, the number of new death sentences in 2011 fell to 78 from last year's 112, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit archive run by advocates of abolition. That was the lowest sentencing level since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Execution rates dropped slightly: from 46 to 43, reflecting the long-term decline in sentencing and increasing difficulties in obtaining a key drug for lethal injections.

Even Texas, the state that has executed more than a third of the 1,277 put to death in the last 35 years, showed a decline, carrying out the ultimate penalty 13 times this year, compared with 17 last year and 24 in 2009.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-death-sentences-drop-20111230,0,2333034,print.story

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Immigration rights: U.S. launches new hotline for detainees

The toll-free number, (855) 448-6903, will field queries from detainees held by state or local law enforcement agencies if the detainees "believe they may be U.S. citizens or victims of a crime," the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said in a statement.

An ICE official in Washington said agency representatives had not been authorized to comment about the hotline but that more information soon would be posted online.

The hotline will be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by ICE personnel, according to the statement, with interpreters available in several languages.

"ICE personnel will collect information from the individual and refer it to the relevant ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations field office for immediate action," the statement said.

As part of the new initiative, ICE officials plan to issue a form to all detainees informing them that ICE will assume their custody within 48 hours, according to the statement. The form will be available in English as well as Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese and Vietnamese, the statement said. ICE posted a sample copy of the form online Thursday.

"It also advises individuals that if ICE does not take them into custody within the 48 hours, they should contact the [law enforcement agency] or entity that is holding them to inquire about their release from state or local custody," the statement said.

The hotline comes amid controversy over local law enforcement agencies' ability to detain people they believe to be illegal immigrants.

Scores of local law enforcement agencies partner with the federal government under the 287(g) program, established in 1996, which deputizes police to turn over suspects or criminals to immigration authorities for possible deportation. Normally, police do not enforce federal law.

ICE has 287(g) agreements with 69 law enforcement agencies in 24 states, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Since January 2006, the program is credited with identifying more than 217,300 potentially removable illegal immigrants, mostly at local jails, according to ICE records. Also under the program, ICE has trained and certified more than 1,500 state and local officials to enforce immigration law, the agency says.

Immigrant rights groups say the program has led to civil rights violations and racial profiling, and such authority has been especially controversial in Arizona. There, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been criticized for what many people call mistreatment of suspected illegal immigrants.

This month, the Justice Department announced it was suspending its 287(g) agreement with Arpaio and his deputies after an investigation found they had pursued a campaign of racial profiling against Latinos, making unlawful arrests and violating civil rights laws in an effort to crack down on illegal immigration.

Separately, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona, ended the Maricopa County jail officers' authority to detain people on immigration charges, barring them from holding immigration violators who have not been charged with local crimes.

Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, called the new hotline “a positive development,” but said it was “overdue” and “inadequate.”

“Often people who are subject to ICE detainers have no idea why they are being held,” said Saenz, who is based at the national Latino civil rights group's Los Angeles headquarters. “This kind of step should have been in place the very first time ICE undertook an expansion of its detainers.”

“ICE needs to focus on fixing the problems up front,” Saenz added, avoiding unconstitutional arrests and monitoring local law enforcement agencies it partners with rather than relying on detainees to report abuses.

“It relies on the individuals being detained to have the courage, knowledge and wherewithal to make a call to the hotline and follow up. They may feel intimidated or unable to adequately navigate their case,” Saenz said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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Lawmaker doesn't want TSA to pocket change left at checkpoints

Ever wonder what happens to the loose change that harried travelers leave behind at airport checkpoints?

One lawmaker has his sights on the unclaimed money, which added up to $376,480.39 in the 2010 fiscal year.

At Los Angeles International Airport alone, $19,110.83 was left at checkpoints, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman. That's in addition to $500 in poker chips left behind at LAX a few years ago and later converted by TSA to cash.

Congress allows TSA to use the unclaimed money to help fund its operations.

But legislation has been introduced by Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) to give the money to the USO for its airport programs in support of the military. The USO, whose mission is to lift the spirits of America's troops and their families, is a nonprofit, congressionally chartered private organization.

Charlie Leocha, director of the Consumer Travel Alliance, said his advocacy group supports turning over the money to the USO or other groups that aid travelers with things like airport help desks.

"Any use of the money by TSA seems distasteful," he said. "It's not their money. In fact, it is money left by harassed passengers and should certainly not go to to TSA as a reward for invasive searches."

Miller proposed a similar but unsuccessful measure in 2009 to turn the money over to the USO. Now that he is chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, he may be better positioned to advance his bill.

The measure, which has yet to move out of the Committee on Homeland Security, could face a steep climb at a time when lawmakers are searching for every nickel and dime to reduce the federal budget deficit.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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