Capital punishment in California could become much rarer.
The state Supreme Court will begin hearings on Wednesday in a case that could make it more difficult for a defendant to receive the death penalty.
Legal analyst Rory Little of the UC Hastings School of Law said this case could require a jury to be unanimous to issue the death penalty.
"This case simply says, ‘You ought to go back to the 19th century when the California Constitution was written.’ Everyone understood that unanimity and beyond a reasonable doubt was the right way to do it. We ought to go back to that and apply it to the death penalty today."
How the court rules could affect pending cases, and even reverse death sentences of the 704 inmates currently on Death Row.
Gov. Gavin Newsom supports changing the law. In March 2019, he halted executions in the state through an executive order. "The intentional killing of another person is wrong and as Governor, I will not oversee the execution of any individual," he said in a statement.
"Our death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure. It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation. It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Most of all, the death penalty is absolute. It’s irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error."
Newsom angered some prosecutors when he ordered executions to stop in the state. Organizers of the recall campaign, too, say Newsom’s halting of the death penalty is one of the drivers behind the campaign to oust him.
Voters themselves rejected an attempt to do away with the death penalty in 2016. But, it was a narrow win for death penalty advocates.
Only 53.2% of voters voted against Proposition 62, or the Repeal of the Death Penalty Initiative.
A 2021 poll from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found that 44% of California voters support repealing the death penalty, while 35% would vote No.
A relatively large proportion of voters, 21%, remain undecided.
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