This week, a coalition of prominent civil rights and legal organizations filed a writ petition at the CA Supreme Court stating that “Extensive empirical evidence demonstrates that California’s capital punishment scheme is administered in a racially discriminatory manner and violates the equal protection provisions of the state Constitution.”
The petition was filed by the Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of Northern California, WilmerHale, and the Office of the State Public Defender, on behalf of petitioners OSPD, Witness to Innocence, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Eva Paterson, co-founder of the Equal Justice Society.
The Legal Defense Fund’s news release noted that “evidence of racial bias in California’s implementation of the death penalty is pervasive and well-documented,” and pointed to the fact that “empirical studies by leading social science experts” reveal that “Black people are about five times more likely to be sentenced to death when compared to similarly situated non-Black defendants, while Latino people are at least three times more likely to be sentenced to death,” in the state.
The coalition pointed out that both Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have acknowledged the persistent and pervasive racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty in California. Gov. Newsom stated that “death sentences are unevenly and unfairly applied to people of color. . .” when he signed his Executive Order instituting a moratorium on the state’s death penalty in 2019. And the petitioners note that in 2021, Attorney General Bonta said the death penalty has “long had a disparate impact on defendants of color, especially when the victim is white.” And, yet, they add, “California prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty and obtain sentences disproportionately against people of color.”
So, since Bonta has openly stated that California’s capital punishment system is racist, “The question is what the Attorney General intends to do about this unconstitutional reality. As the state’s chief law enforcement officer, and an avowed defender of equal justice under the law, we would hope and expect that the Attorney General would take affirmative steps to dismantle this racially motivated and disparate system,” said Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Program at ACLU NorCal Avi Frey.