California currently has 592 people in our prisons Those were sentenced to death.
It is the largest number of prisoners who are waiting for the execution of any country. 175 of these prisoners He was sentenced to the courts of Los Angeles, which gave Los Angeles a doubtful discrimination in keeping more men (and three women) in the death row more than any state except for Florida. In fact, there are currently more people from La waiting for death From all Texas.
So it is fair to say that Los Angeles is still playing a major role in the death penalty discussion at the same time. When our boss presses for more useAlthough the fundamental racism and the injustice of the final sentence are increasingly recognized even by the prosecutors who use it.
This apparently seems to be a boycott, not a boycott. Atty. Nathan Hoshman, from He wrote not long ago He “well realizes the troubled history of the death penalty, those who were later justified, and philosophical issues related to their implementation.”
This makes it more concerned that Hochman recently announced that it would reflect his predecessor’s policy, George Jaskoun, and again thinking about following the death penalty in some “very rare” killing (it is not already searched for the death penalty for murders suffering from special circumstances, such as killing a police officer).
Return to death sentence California Committee on the review of the Penal CodeTell me, and I couldn’t agree more.
“It is racist,” said Romano. “All problems related to the death penalty in Los Angeles are exacerbated.”
If Hochman’s decision is wrong, it will be established in politics and arrogance – a wrong belief that it can evoke a recipe that spoils the offending of the cake.
“It reflects a kind of arrogance about the reliability of our system,” Brian Stevenson told me. He is a civil rights lawyer who argued with death penalty cases in the Supreme Court, and CEO Equal Justice InitiativeMontgomery Human Rights Organization, Alaa.
“There was a lot of progress in Los Angeles to face bias against the poor and prejudice against colored people,” said Stephenson. But “these cases have not been resolved in the way you can impose a kind of ideal process required by the death penalty.”
Read more: Prosecutors put men in the death row. This California Da wants to take them up
This is not some progressive progress. On the national level, it is estimated that 1 out of 25 people were sentenced to death innocent, and more states, recently in Virginia, New Hampsheer and Colorado, prohibiting the death penalty.
The problems recognized in its fairness were part of the reason that the governor of the state, Gavin New Zoom, in 2019 issued an executive stop in the executions in California, noting that “the death sentences are uneven and unfairly for people with color, persons with mental disabilities, and people who cannot afford the costs of the costly legal representation.”
In Los Angeles Province from 2012 to 2019, none of the 22 people who were sentenced to death were not white, according to 2021 The death penalty report by the Romano Committee.
In general, approximately 50 % of the people sent by La to the execution, according to the report, approximately 30 % of the Latin – and less than 15 % of eggs. It is difficult to determine the systematic prejudices that lead to these deviant statistics, and often crawl in each step of the legal process. For example, when the victim of killing is white, studies show that public prosecutors are more likely to seek the death penalty more than a victim.
I spoke with Hochman about its reasons for adding the death penalty to the mixture, and said that some of his decisions were about ending a kind of “Banning of Batan” I have implemented that Gascón refused to search for the death penalty – at all.
Los Angeles Dest province. Atty. Nathan Hachman will allow prosecutors to follow up the death penalty in rare circumstances. (Damian Duvarghan / Associated Press)
This is politics. Hochman carried a campaign to restore the death penalty as part of the crime platform, and it is presented. He argues that although the death penalty remains legal in California – where voters throughout the state have repeatedly failed to end it – he has its responsibility to use it, albeit carefully.
“When the provincial lawyer was right, and she said that I will support all the laws of California, I did not see the star of the star on this section, and I was not allowed to bypass my fingers and say that I will only support the laws that I personally want or influence.”
This, however, is a bit deceitful. Prosecutors use their discretion all the time, and they are expected to use this wide offer to make decisions to ensure not only to dispose of the law, but in the interest of justice.
This estimate to follow up on what is true is simply legal is “what prompted the prosecutors all over our state and the country to create the safety of the safety of the condemnation that is studying old issues to pressure the changes of laws on how to interrogate and judge young people to ask about the shooting of the police and conduct independent investigations,” Romano pointed out.
He said, “If the prosecutors fail themselves to follow the laws instead of leadership in justice, then both the public safety and fairness that we are looking for in our criminal justice system will be shortened,” he said.
Considering this: In 2016, the 62nd proposal failed, which sought to cancel the death penalty, as Hochman notes – but not in Los Angeles Province. here, 52 % of the voters were in favor To replace it with life in prison without any possibility of conditional release. These were similar to the results in 2012, when the 34th proposal was approved, which also sought to end the death penalty, by 54 % of the Los Angeles voters.
So the death penalty is not a winner with Angelinus. I think a few people will be angry if Hochman’s exclusion from its blanket ban on the ban on the blanket and left the death penalty in the trash, the campaign’s promises aside.
Instead, Hashman said it is plans to take the death penalty faster and with a multi -layer process not only involves prosecutors, but also allows those who defend the defense to undertake reduced factors.
Two examples of the type of cases in which he considers, both mass shootings – were used – 26 people in 2012, including 20 children, in Sandy Hook, Contecticut, and the 2017 mass shooting at the Las Vegas sector in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 people.
While both of these crimes are terrible and certainly deserves the harsh punishment, it also highlights the subjectivity of the “very rare” standard that it uses.
What about serial killers? What about the shooting of the school where the deaths are two numbers? What about just one of the parents who kill his child, and the worst loss that can be imagined to them, like modern, The tragic killing of Oscar Omar Hernandez, 13,He is claimed by a football coach who is now accused by Hoshman with a Special circumstances kill Qualification for the death penalty?
Elizabeth Simmel, a professor of law at the University of California in Berkeley and the founding director of the Berkeley Law Death Clinic, said that he was “out of reach and was shot” in determining what is the most terrible crimes that deserve death. She said, “It gives a real huge latitude to arbitrariness,” she said. “And one of the worst death penalties is its arbitration.”
Read more: Da Hoshman officially brings the death penalty to Los Angeles
Hashman said he is not concerned about racial bias in the death penalty cases today, because “there is a lot of protection that has been developed to deal with this particular case, around 2025 in Los Angeles Province.”
It indicates 2020 Ethnic justice lawThe defense lawyer gives the ability to challenge the real -time racist bias, as a major protection. He adds that “the sensitivities in which the prosecutors have evolved over the years to the implicit and implicit racial prejudice, and the sensitivity that the courts also developed for these cases and the very talented defense strip found in Los Angeles will come out of any types of racial bias.”
This is a more controversial confirmation, which makes Hashman looks like, and more than one province’s lawyer in the state argues on the contrary.
Last year, after a visit to Old sitesMontgomery Museum and Monument, led by Stephenson, focused on the interlocking dates of criminal justice and slavery, Santa Clara Province. Atty. Jeff Rosen took an unprecedented step. The court asked For resentment, every conviction of the death penalty Ever ever won the Santa Clara province of life without conditional release.
Rosen at that time told me: “This does not mean that I think things are bad today as they were 50 years ago.” “But I also trust that as a society, we can ensure the basic integrity of the legal process for all people. With every talisman, with every story of racial injustice, it becomes clear to me that this is not the world in which we live.”
The state’s Supreme Court also weighs unexpectedly. Last year, I agreed to move forward A case filed by the state’s general defender’s officeWho is responsible for the death penalty cases, accusing that the racist bias in the death penalty makes it illegal under the California Constitution.
Although the lawsuit is called California Atty. General Rob Punta as the defendant, Punta also talked about the death penalty and encouraged his court office to review the case. The case moves slowly, but the death penalty can end in California.
Meanwhile, Hochman maintains the right to try to implement the state law as it sees appropriate.
But at a dangerous point in history when it is black and The brown Americans are attackedWhen you are like Diversity, fairness and inclusion were targeted to eradicatewhen The history of slavery and civil rights is literally erasedThe region’s lawyer has chosen our way asking us to believe that a judge system may be historically distinguished in the most dangerous moments, his past will be treated under his supervision.
This leaves Los Angeles the death penalty policy that raises evidence and justice, in favor of arrogance.
This story was originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
