By Vanessa Barford
The number of death sentences handed down in the US dropped by a third
in 2015, continuing a long-term trend, but one county in California seems to be
going against the grain. It handed down 16% of all death sentences in the
country despite being home to less than 1% of the population. Why?
Only six US states carried out executions this year -
Texas, Missouri, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma and Virginia.
California, which last executed a convict on death row
in 2006, was not among them.
However, California topped the list of states handing
down death sentences, contributing 14 to the nationwide total of 49.
And eight of those death sentences came from one
county alone - Riverside, which is situated to the east of Los Angeles and
stretches all the way to the border with Arizona.
This is despite the fact that Riverside has a
population of only 2.3 million, compared with 39 million in California as a
whole.
So why is Riverside so keen on the death penalty?
A glance at statistics from previous years suggests
that eight death sentences in one year is quite high for Riverside. In 2014
there were three, in 2013 there were six.
But this is still high by the standards of California
and the US as a whole. Riverside's western neighbour, Los Angeles County, with
a population more than four times as large, handed down three death sentences
in 2015. From 2012 to 2014 inclusive Los Angeles County issued 17 death
sentences but Riverside was not far behind, with 13.
Judged by the number of death sentences handed down, Riverside has
ranked no lower than third among the US's more than 3,000 counties since 2012,
and was first in 2015.
"The county is the most glaring example of a
phenomenon that is being seen across the US, which is that even though the
death penalty is in broad decline across most of America, there are individual
pockets that continue to disproportionately use it," says Robert Dunham,
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
He cites a 2013 report done by the centre which found
that the majority of people on death row in the US were sentenced to death by
fewer than 2% of the counties.
California had 746 people on death row in January
2015, far ahead of the state in second place - Florida, with 400.
University of California Berkeley law professor
Franklin Zimring says there are plenty of reasons why Riverside may be
responsible for so many death sentences.
For one thing it has a "somewhat tougher and more
conservative political reputation than [California's] coastal counties",
he says.
However, he says the key determining factor for a county handing down
lots of death sentences is the district attorney.
"You don't have death sentences without a capital
trial, and the district attorney is the one that ultimately decides how many
capital trials are going to happen - and some seem to go after them more
aggressively than others," he says.
Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin says
the people of Riverside support the death sentence to greater degree than other
counties and "there is a certain feeling of how they want criminal justice
to operate".
But he says death sentences are only imposed when it's
necessary to achieve justice.
"We had eight cases this year and the juries and
judge agreed," he says.
When he took over as DA in January he reviewed each of
the 22 pending death-penalty cases, he says, and decided to stop seeking death
in six of them.
"That's a 30% reduction from my predecessor. Of
the 11 new cases that came in this year, where I was the first to make a
determination, I am only seeking the death penalty four times," he says.
Hestrin is part of a group of district attorneys, law
enforcement and victims' rights advocates who are pushing for a 2016 ballot
initiative that could speed up the death penalty process by accelerating
appeals, among other things, in California.
The system is "terribly broken," he argues,
with people sentenced to death having to wait up to seven years for an appeals
lawyer.
Zimring agrees that the system needs reform, saying a
capital trial is just the start of a "hugely expensive" process and a
"marathon of legal procedure".
But he is optimistic about the direction of travel for
anti-death-penalty campaigners.
"In 1995 the same number of death sentences in
Riverside would have accounted for 3% or 4% of American death sentences, not
16%," he says.
"Plus the fact that LA, which tends to be the
centre of gravity for capital prosecutions due to the size and nature of the
population and violent crime, isn't in first place suggests more realistic
policy decisions are coming from the LA county office, which is by no means a
hotbed of liberal sentiment.
"That for me is more statistically significant
than Riverside."
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