"California Supreme Court voids death penalty in 1998 killing," is by Maura Dolan for the Los Angeles Times.
The California Supreme Court, which upholds the vast majority of capital sentences it reviews, decided unanimously Monday to overturn the death penalty for a convicted Long Beach murderer because a prospective juror was improperly removed for having ambivalent views on capital punishment.
In a ruling written by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, the state high court said that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Tomson T. Ong erred when he removed the potential juror after she said she was uncertain about her position on the death penalty but would impose it if justified.
"To exclude from a capital jury all those who will not promise to immovably embrace the death penalty in the case before them unconstitutionally biases the selection process," Werdegar wrote.
As long as a juror is capable of considering all sentencing alternatives, including the death penalty, he or she is qualified to serve on a death penalty case, the court said.
The ruling requires Los Angeles County prosecutors either to ask another jury to sentence Kevin Darnell Pearson to death or to reduce his sentence to life without the possibility of parole. A spokeswoman for the district attorney's office said it has not yet reviewed the ruling.
"Calif. Supreme Court reverses 2nd death sentence," by Bob Egelko for the San Francisco Chronicle.
After upholding 46 consecutive death sentences over two years, the state Supreme Court on Monday issued its second reversal in two months, granting a new sentencing trial to a Long Beach man because the judge at his rape-murder trial dismissed a juror who had mixed feelings about the death penalty.
While unanimously overturning Kevin Pearson's death sentence, the court upheld his convictions for taking part in the kidnapping, rape, robbery, torture and murder of Penny Sigler.
And:
The court, which in recent years has had one of the nation's highest rates of affirming death sentences, went two years without a reversal until Dec. 5, when it overturned the murder convictions and death sentences of two Los Angeles men after finding that the trial judge had wrongly removed a holdout juror during deliberations.
Monday's ruling also found improper dismissal of a juror, this time during pretrial questioning about the death penalty.
The court said the prospective juror wrote in her questionnaire that she wasn't sure how she felt about capital punishment. Questioned by prosecution and defense lawyers, she said she could vote for a death sentence in an appropriate case.
Superior Court Judge Tomson Ong then granted a prosecution request to remove the juror from the panel for possible anti-death-penalty bias.
But the state's high court said the law considers jurors' personal views irrelevant as long as they agree to set those views aside and base their decisions on the evidence.
"State High Court Overturns Second Death Sentence in a Month," at Law.com's the Recorder. It's written by Kate Moser.
"To exclude from a capital jury all those who will not promise to immovably embrace the death penalty in the case before them unconstitutionally biases the selection process," wrote Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar in the unanimous decision.
And:
In his direct appeal, Pearson argued, among other things, that Judge Tomson Ong improperly excused a potential juror due to her statements during voir dire on the death penalty. She expressed mixed views, but categorically said she could apply the death penalty if the facts called for the punishment.
Relying on the high court's 1988 decision in People v. Guzman, the judge concluded she shouldn't serve on the jury because she equivocated on capital punishment.
"Guzman does not stand for the idea that a person is substantially impaired for jury service in a capital case because his or her ideas about the death penalty are indefinite, complicated or subject to qualifications, and we do not embrace such a rule," Werdegar wrote.
The California Supreme Court opinion in People v. Pearson is available in Adobe .pdf format.
Questions raised by the replacement of a juror in a recently concluded California trial was noted yesterday.
The Los Angeles Times Opinion L.A. notes a recent conversation between the paper's editorial board and Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye of the state's Supreme Court. It's titled, "California's chief justice: 'Life without means life without'."
Does Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye oppose the death penalty? That's the way some observers on both sides of the debate took her statement in a Dec. 24 Los Angeles Times story by staff writer Maura Dolan. But no, the chief justice told The Times' editorial board on Friday, she has no position on whether it ought to be the law in California. And she was surprised by some of the reaction.
What was the reaction to the chief justice's statement in The Times regarding the death penalty?
I have had mixed reaction, as you might imagine. I thought it was a fairly -- my statement was a fairly objective one. There's nothing wrong with debate. There's nothing wrong with discourse. That's what moves us forward. That's what may bring about change, may initiate change.
So of course I received some very heated, emotional letters -- that I don't disagree with the emotion behind -- but that was not my point or focus.
And then I've also received, interesting enough, just as many if not more letters of support for courage, for encouraging a debate, for realizing and having a perspective that the state's resources have to be reconsidered. We are in a different place than we were in '78 and the ensuing years. There's nothing wrong with a debate. It's been done. And people bring great expertise to this area. So we shouldn't be afraid of having that exchange.
Finally for this roundup, Loretta Keller writes the OpEd, "Time to ban the death penalty," for the Pasadena Star-News.
The Savings, Accountability and Full Enforcement (SAFE) campaign calls for a 2012 ballot initiative that would replace the death penalty in our state with life imprisonment without parole. The initiative is called Safe California, and I strongly support its adoption.
And:
If Safe California is passed, the initiative will release $100 million for three years to keep police on the streets and to solve unsolved felonies. And it would require all persons who are given life without parole sentences to work in order to pay restitution to the victim's compensation fund.
We owe it to ourselves to make 2012 a better year by supporting Safe California. No person or state has the moral right to take a viable life.
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