GOP, prosecutors, crime victims push effort to speed up California executions

Prosecutors, crime victims and Republican lawmakers said Wednesday they are prepared to go to the ballot if the Democratic-controlled Legislature refuses to act on a package of bills to speed up California's death penalty.

At a Capitol press conference, the death penalty advocates said their proposed legislation could cut nearly in half the 15 to 20 years it now takes for the state's criminal justice system to process the cases.

The bills would not affect appeals in the federal system that routinely extend death penalty delays even further.

"The vast majority of Californians are in support of the death penalty, but they're frustrated because the average (delay) of 17 years is just too long, and 20, 21, 24 years is way too long," said John Poyner, president of the California District Attorneys Association and the chief prosecutor in Colusa County.

Lance Lindsey, executive director of San Francisco-based Death Penalty Focus, a group that staunchly opposes capital punishment, said the thrust of legislative package unveiled Wednesday "is moving in the contrary direction" of concerns expressed by some members of the public about wrongful executions.

"The notion of speeding up the death penalty is contrary to what the best experts in the criminal justice system and the judicial system are concluding," Lindsey said.

Backers of the legislation said they do not expect their bills to make it through the Legislature. One key measure would cut down on the time it takes to appoint an attorney to represent a convicted murderer facing the death penalty, from the current average of more than five years to one.

Another would force officials to correct mistakes in the official record of a murder case within 120 days of a conviction, a process that can now take up to three years.

Led by Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco, the capital punishment proponents said they want to go to the ballot in either June or November of 2010 if they lose in the Legislature.

Pacheco, a former Republican assemblyman, said he had no plans to resurrect a one-time candidacy for state attorney general.

California's process of executing convicted murderers by lethal injection, meanwhile, is on hold pending a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on whether the procedure causes an unnecessarily painful death.

About the writer:

• Call Andy Furillo, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 321-1141.