Renowned Civil Rights and Legal Organizations File Petition Challenging California Death Penalty, Highlight Evidence Demonstrating Racial Discrimination
SAN FRANCISCO — Today, a consortium of nationally renowned civil rights organizations, legal organizations, and a law firm an extraordinary writ petition in the Supreme Court of California challenging the state’s death penalty statute as racially discriminatory and unconstitutional under the Equal Protection guarantees of the California Constitution. This is the first time a petition of this nature has been filed with the court.
The original petition to the Supreme Court of California was filed by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project (ACLU CPP), the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU NorCal), WilmerHale, and the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD). This challenge was brought on behalf of petitioners OSPD, Witness to Innocence, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Eva Paterson, co-founder of the Equal Justice Society.
The evidence of racial bias in California’s implementation of the death penalty is pervasive and well-documented. by reveal troubling disparities: Black people are about five times more likely to be sentenced to death when compared to similarly situated non-Black defendants, while Latino people are at least three times more likely to be sentenced to death.
“The California Constitution does not permit a two-tiered system of justice where the most severe sentence the state has on its books is imposed overwhelmingly on Black and Brown people,” said Lisa Romo, Senior Deputy State Public Defender at OSPD. “We urge the Court to address this long-standing injustice and ensure that Black and Brown people are no longer sentenced disproportionately to death.”
“Equal protection under the laws is a fundamental guarantee of the California Constitution,” said Seth Waxman, partner and Co-Chair of WilmerHale’s Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Practice, “but for decades administration of the death penalty in California has failed to meet that guarantee.”
Added Jessica Lewis, a partner in WilmerHale’s San Francisco office: “That failure is why this petition is so critical. The empirical evidence described in the petition demonstrates that the death penalty in California has long been administered in a racially discriminatory manner, in violation of the equal protection guarantees of the California Constitution.”
California’s capital punishment scheme is not only racially discriminatory, but this form of punishment, as well as other tools of racial violence, have historically been weaponized to harm people of color.
“The persistence of racial disparities in the administration of capital punishment in California is linked to a legacy of racial violence and oppression long perpetrated against Black people and other people of color,” said LDF Assistant Counsel Patricia Okonta. “Capital punishment has roots in slavery, lynchings, and white vigilantism. Maintaining these violent remnants of racial subordination is unconscionable and has no place in modern society.”
Both Governor Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have acknowledged the persistent and pervasive racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty in California. In a 2021 amicus brief submitted in People v. McDaniel, Governor Newsom acknowledged that the “overwhelming majority of studies that have analyzed America’s death penalty have found that racial disparities are pervasive, and that the race of the defendant and the race of the victim impact whether the death penalty will be imposed.” In March of 2019 Governor Newsom signed an Executive Order instituting a moratorium on the death penalty in California stating that, “death sentences are unevenly and unfairly applied to people of color. . .”
“California’s racially biased death penalty continues to destroy Black and Brown communities,” said Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Prison Advocacy Coordinator Morgan Zamora. “Even after Governor Newsom’s 2019 moratorium on executions, seventeen people — 80% of whom are Black or Latiné — have been sentenced to death. Black and Brown Californians deserve for our state to live up to its values and take the necessary steps to finally end the death penalty.”
In 2021, Attorney General Bonta also notably stated that capital punishment has “long had a disparate impact on defendants of color, especially when the victim is white,” and added that “[California is] moving towards ending the death penalty.” Despite these disparities and Governor Newsom’s moratorium, California prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty and obtain sentences disproportionately against people of color.
“The Attorney General is of course correct that California’s capital punishment scheme harms Black and brown people disproportionately,” said Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Program at ACLU NorCal Avi Frey. “The question is what the Attorney General intends to do about this unconstitutional reality. As the State’s chief law enforcement officer, and an avowed defender of equal justice under the law, we would hope and expect that the Attorney General would take affirmative steps to dismantle this racially motivated and disparate system.”
“The body of evidence presented in this petition demonstrates what experienced death penalty practitioners in California and around the country have long known: decision-makers at every stage of capital prosecution from charging to sentencing have treated Black and Brown lives as less valuable than white lives,” said Claudia Van Wyk, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “This case gives the California Supreme Court an opportunity to implement the State’s core constitutional values and right this wrong.”
Learn More About the Issues in This Press Release
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Over 130 Civil and Human Rights Organizations Call on President Biden to Commute Federal Death SentencesOver 130 Civil and Human Rights Organizations Call on President Biden to Commute Federal Death Sentences
WASHINGTON – More than 130 civil and human rights organizations, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, issued a letter to President Biden today, urging him to commute the sentences of people on federal death row before he leaves office. The letter highlights the moral and legal failings of the death penalty in the United States and stresses the urgency of action to prevent the potential resurgence of federal executions under an incoming Trump administration. The groups call on Biden to fulfill his campaign promise to address the irrevocably broken federal death penalty and to “bring America into a new era of moral leadership.” President Biden was the first presidential candidate to openly oppose the death penalty, and his administration issued a moratorium on federal executions. With 40 men still on death row, however, the letter emphasizes that commuting federal death sentences is the only irreversible action President Biden can take to prevent the incoming administration from attempting another execution spree. "President Biden has an opportunity to make history by addressing the racist and unjust federal death penalty system and keep an early campaign promise he made to the American people,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU. “Commuting the sentences of those on death row would help end the death penalty once and for all and prevent a second execution spree by President Trump. Trump’s first act of political theater ended in the execution of 13 people. President Biden shouldn’t allow Trump to repeat that travesty." In Trump’s final months in office, his administration executed 13 people in rapid succession, more than any administration in over 120 years. The Trump administration also amended the federal execution protocol which opened the door to more brutal methods of execution, including death by firing squad, electrocution, and nitrogen hypoxia, an untested and torturous method. Below are additional comments from: Paul O’Brien, executive director, Amnesty International USA: “President-elect Trump has promised to restart and accelerate the federal death machine, just as he did in his last administration. In the span of only 6 months, the Trump administration executed more people than the 10 previous presidential administrations combined. The executions carried out in his first term demonstrated to the world how the federal death penalty is fundamentally broken and that this ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment should be abolished forever. We should take Trump at his word when he says he plans to repeat this horrific killing spree, and Biden must do what he can now to prevent it.” Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel, Legal Defense Fund: “Since our founding, LDF has been unwavering in its fight to abolish the death penalty and eliminate racial discrimination from our criminal legal system. The death penalty is rooted in slavery, lynchings, and white vigilantism and historically weaponized against people of color. From the Groveland Four in 1949 to many capital cases today, Black people are disproportionately impacted by the ultimate punishment. Commuting the sentences of the 40 individuals on federal death row is an unprecedented opportunity for President Biden to cement his commitment to remedying injustice by exercising executive clemency.” Margaret Huang, president and CEO, The Southern Poverty Law Center: “The death penalty is rooted in a deep history of racialized violence. To this day, race is still the biggest predictor of who gets sentenced to death, with Black people accounting for nearly 40% of those on federal death row, despite representing less than 12% of the adult population. And fully 70% of those on federal death row are from the South. Our nation, and particularly the communities that we serve in the Deep South, cannot achieve true racial justice while the death penalty remains in practice.” Joia Erin Thornton, executive director, FLOCC (Faith Leaders of Color Coalition): “President Biden should commute all federal death sentences because doing so would acknowledge and help redress the racial bias built into the federal death penalty system, allow government resources to be redirected to policies that actually make our communities safer, and allow the families of victims and incarcerated persons to focus on healing instead of living in legal limbo.” This letter is one of more than a dozen letters released today from hundreds of stakeholders from across the political and faith spectrums calling on President Biden to commute all federal death sentences, including Black pastors, former corrections officials, business leaders, current and former prosecutors, families who have lost loved ones to homicide, mental health advocates, and many more. All of the letters can be found here. -
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WASHINGTON — A U.S. military court has agreed that the plea agreement reached with ACLU client Khalid Shaikh Mohammad back in August is valid and must go into effect. The judge’s decision comes three months after Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, overruled prosecutors and Brig. General Susan Escallier, the Guantánamo military commission’s convening authority, and revoked the signed plea agreement. In exchange for a guilty plea to all counts, the U.S. government agreed to life imprisonment instead of the death penalty for Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and two other defendants. The military judge’s decision follows litigation by the three defendants to enforce their agreement with the government. The negotiated plea process allows family members to get answers to long-held questions about the attacks directly from the defendants and, at sentencing, make statements about the tragic impact on them and their loved ones. The military judge has said he will next schedule a hearing for the guilty pleas to be entered. Since 2008, through its John Adams Project, the ACLU has provided capital defense support for detainees facing the death penalty in the military commissions, spending over $12.5 million to provide experienced capital defenders, mitigation specialists, investigators, and experts to the under-resourced military defense teams. Our efforts exposed unfairness, secrecy, and the ongoing role of torture in the Guantanamo military commissions, making clear that the commissions are a complete failure. The following is a statement from Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU: “By reinstating the plea agreements, Col. Matthew N. McCall rightly recognizes that Defense Secretary Austin stepped out of bounds. We are finally back at the only practical solution after nearly two decades of litigation. “The government's decision to settle for life imprisonment instead of seeking the death penalty in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was always the right call. For too long, the U.S. has repeatedly defended its use of torture and unconstitutional military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay. As a nation, we must move forward with the plea process and sentencing hearing that is intended to give victim family members answers to their questions. They deserve transparency and finality about the events that claimed their loved ones. “This plea agreement further underscores the fact that the death penalty is out of step with the fundamental values of our democratic system. It is inhumane, inequitable, and unjust. “We also urge the U.S. government to quickly relocate the men cleared for transfer, and finally end all indefinite detentions and unfair trials at Guantánamo.”