As Controversial Execution Looms, ACLU Asks for Clemency for Stephen Wayne Anderson, Calls for a State Moratorium on Executions

ACLU Protesters Mount Vigil at San Quentin State Prison, January 28, 2002
For Immediate Release: January 25, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO – Citing the inadequacy of the counsel provided to Stephen Wayne Anderson, who is scheduled for execution at San Quentin State Prison on January 29, the ACLU called today on Governor Gray Davis to grant clemency in the case. Anderson, 48, was convicted of the 1980 murder of Elizabeth Lyman in San Bernardino County. Members of Lyman’s family strongly oppose the execution of Anderson.

 “His case presents a myriad of reasons for clemency including ineffective assistance of counsel and the failure of the jury to hear necessary and compelling mitigating evidence,” wrote Dorothy Ehrlich, executive director of the ACLU of Northern California, and Diann Rust-Tierney, director of the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, in a January 25 letter to Governor Davis. “In your public statements you have consistently expressed your confidence in the fairness of the death penalty system in California.  This case should greatly undermine that confidence.  We are greatly concerned about a death sentence being carried out under these circumstances.”

 The work of Anderson’s court-appointed attorney, S. Donald Ames, has been ruled so deficient in the past that the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voided the sentences of two of Ames’ clients who were sent to death row. On December 21, 2001, the Ninth Circuit denied Anderson’s request for a rehearing of his appeal, with a dissent from six of the judges, in which they said: “[Anderson’s] death sentence may well have been imposed, not because of the crime that he committed, but because of the incompetence of an attorney with little integrity and a pattern of ineffective performance in capital cases.”

 “The case of Stephen Wayne Anderson shows that California is not immune from the kinds of miscarriages of justice that have come to light around the nation in recent years,” said Ehrlich. “We urge Governor Davis to call a halt to all executions in California until the state can guarantee that all defendants have equal access to competent representation and a fair trial.”

 Former Los Angeles Mayor and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Richard Riordan stated this week that he would be open to halting executions if evidence emerged that they were being unfairly imposed.