There is no credible evidence that an innocent person has been executed in California, a state commission report concludes.
However, the commission “cannot conclude with confidence that the administration of the death penalty in California eliminates the risk that innocent persons might be convicted and sentenced to death,” says the report. It was prepared in 2008 by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
Californians will vote in November on whether to abolish capital punishment.
14 IN CALIFORNIA
“Nationally, there were 205 exoneration of defendants convicted of murder from 1989 through 2003,” the commission reported. “Seventy-four of them had been sentenced to death. Fourteen of these 205 murder cases took place in California, according to a separate study, ‘Exonerations in the United States.’
“Since 1979, six defendants sentenced to death, whose convictions were reversed and remanded, were subsequently acquitted or had their murder charges dismissed for lack of evidence. While DNA testing was not available and these defendants were not officially exonerated, the reversal of their convictions freed them. A subsequent acquittal or dismissal of charges rendered them legally not guilty, although there was no determination of ‘factual innocence’ pursuant to California law.”
The biggest reason for wrongful convictions is erroneous eyewitness identifications, the report says. That accounted for 80 percent of exonerations, and false confessions were a factor in 15 percent.
23 WITH INFORMANTS
California State Public Defender Michael Hersek reported that of 117 death penalty appeals pending in his office, 17 featured testimony by in-custody informants, and another six included testimony by informants who were in constructive custody.
The report recommended steps to reduce the risks of wrongful convictions resulting from erroneous eye witness identifications, false confessions, and testimony by in-custody informants. Those were enacted by the Legislature, but were vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“A national study of all death penalty sentences imposed from 1973 to 1995 revealed that 82 percent (247 out of 301) of the capital judgments that were reversed and returned for a retrial or a new penalty hearing were replaced with a sentence less than death, or no sentence at all,” the commission reported.
It notes that seven percent (22/301) of the reversals for serious error resulted in a determination on retrial that the defendant was not guilty of the capital offense.
