On Tuesday, April 18, I testified before the California Senate Public Safety Committee on two pieces of legislation that would begin the process of fixing California’s broken death penalty. The committee is dominated by liberal Democrats and the author of the legislation is a Conservative Republican. However, we all agree that the system is broken and that if executions, which are the law of the land and are supported by a majority of the population, are to proceed, certain legislative and administrative adjustments must be made. Senate Bill 1514, which was quickly defeated, would have eliminated the automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court for any death row inmate whose guilt was known and unquestioned. The following represents my testimony on behalf of Senate Constitutional Amendment 20, which would have diverted automatic appeals from the California Supreme Court, which has 7 jurists, to the California Court of Appeals, which has more than 100 jurists.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve sat here and testified on behalf of opportunities to fix the death penalty. I’ve testified on behalf of some of Senator Harmon’s bills and have at long last come to the conclusion that this committee has absolutely no intent of fulfilling the law of the land. They have absolutely no intent of doing anything more than protecting the most heinous individuals amongst us. You people don’t care about my daughter; you people don’t care about any of the victims. You are interested in subverting the law of the land.”
“I think that you should be ashamed for the stand that you are taking here today. There is no way that the death penalty will ever be fixed, and we all agree that it is a broken system, as long as you turn your back on every common sense solution that’s put forth. Yes indeed, it is about not having enough lawyers, but you know what? We have about 170,000 practicing lawyers in California and only 100 of them are qualified to hear death penalty appeals?”
“Yes, we have a problem with the court system. The Supreme Court cannot hear all of these cases. They have hundreds of cases on their dockets and they can only hear a few every year. You need to stand up and do something real for the people of California. Support the will of the people; support the law of the land. Thank you for your time.”
Committee Chairperson Loni Hancock said, “Thank you for your time. We do have committee rules that indicate that we don’t make attacks on members of the committee or people who are appearing as witnesses. Let me point out that it would help some of this argument if there were tax money to pay $184-million per year which is what it would cost on professional estimates to actually provide constitutional protection.”
And how much does it cost to let this go on year after year after year? How much does it cost to house Richard Allen Davis on death row…”
This is when my microphone was cut off, democracy was denied and a tax and spend liberal State Senator revealed that she was instead a fiscal conservative.
