ACLU-NC's Death Penalty Policy Project Calls for Review of Entire Death Penalty System

U.S. Federal District Judge Jeremy Fogel has found pervasive problems with how the California prison system carries out executions. Now the Governor has announced that prison officials and his staff will try to correct the execution procedures so that executions can resume. This response is wholly insufficient. California’s death penalty is broken from beginning to end. The Governor must act to correct all of the problems with California’s death penalty system.

Serious problems plague the entire death penalty system including:

• Innocent people who are wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death.
  
• Racial and geographic disparities in who is sentenced to death.
  
• Re-traumatization of victim-survivors.

The California Senate has recognized the need for more substantial review of the state’s criminal justice system generally and the death penalty specifically by creating the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice to investigate the “causes of wrongful conviction and wrongful execution” in California. The Commission has already begun issuing recommendations, supported by the Attorney General and the California District Attorneys’ Association. The Governor, however, blocked these reforms by vetoing three bills in October.

The Governor’s decision to “tweak” California’s execution procedures is a wholly inadequate response to these systemic problems. The Governor must support implementation of all of the Commission’s recommendations if California’s criminal justice system is ever to be fixed.

The Governor should:

• Appoint an independent commission to investigate the problems with the implementation of lethal injection in California; and
  
• Implement all of the recommendations of California Commission on Fair Administration of Justice.