PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate release.

In 1996, when our Capital Habeas Unit was founded, Justice William Brennan reminded us that “those who govern must recognize that the framers of the Constitution limited their power in order to preserve human dignity.”  Clemency serves as the essential safety valve in our criminal justice system—especially when that system imposes the most severe and constitutionally fraught punishment possible.

As Governor Newsom recognizes, California’s death penalty does not operate reliably or fairly, nor does it serve a necessary or legitimate purpose.

In their research, “Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle,” U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcón and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell, urged an overhaul of the capital punishment system, given the long delay necessary to ensure the constitutional validity of such a sentence. And California’s system is prone to mistakes.  The Habeas Corpus Resource Center estimates that since 1977, when the death penalty was reimplemented in California, the State has executed 13 people, and exonerated 8. “This means that for every 3 people California has executed, it has exonerated 2.” (Habeas Corpus Resource Center Fact Sheets, available at https://www.hcrc.ca.gov/annualreports.html#factsheets.)

Amy Karlin, Interim Federal Public Defender for the California Central District, stated “Governor Newsom’s action today recognizes the constitutional problems inherent in the way California has implemented the death penalty. As Federal Public Defenders, we applaud today’s decision to recognize that justice cannot countenance so many errors when the ultimate punishment is concerned.”

The Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Central District of California has been representing indigent clients charged with federal crimes since 1971.  The Central District of California encompasses seven counties (Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo) and has a population of over 19 million people.  We have the largest office in the national federal defender system, with offices in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and Riverside that serve the federal courthouses in each location.

Our capital habeas unit (CHU) represents people who have been sentenced to death by state court juries from within the Central District, and whose convictions have proceeded through the state court appellate process and are now before the federal court on claims involving federal constitutional violations. The CHU was established on March 6, 1996.