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The group of Californians and legal advocacy organizations challenging the administration of the state’s capital punishment scheme finalized its supplementary briefing in response to questions from the Supreme Court of California. The state’s highest court ordered parties to respond to questions about the nature of “cruel or unusual punishment” as applied in death penalty sentences, as well as other arguments advanced in the petitioners’ legal filing. This is an important development signaling the court’s interest in resolving the use of the allegedly racially discriminatory capital punishment scheme in California. The original petition filed on April 9, 2024 by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Northern California (ACLU NorCal), WilmerHale, and the Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD) on behalf of petitioners who assert that the administration of California’s death penalty violates the state’s constitution.
Petitioners OSPD, Witness to Innocence, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Equal Justice Society co-founder Eva Patterson made the following joint statement:
“We remain united in our relentless pursuit to end the pervasive racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty in California. The evidence, data, and history are clear: the state’s death penalty has led to the disproportionate executions of Black and Brown Californians, which is a violation of California’s equal protection guarantee and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. There is nothing equal about the ways in which capital punishment is pursued in the state of California. We remain hopeful the California Supreme Court will right this unconstitutional wrong and upend a legacy of racial violence.”
A robust body of empirical evidence spanning over four decades revealed disturbing findings about capital sentencing in California: Black people are around five times more likely and Latino people are three times more likely to be sentenced to death compared to similarly situated non-Black defendants. California Attorney General Rob Bonta found these studies “profoundly disturbing” and agreed the matter of punishment by death penalty deserves “careful consideration by a judicial tribunal”. In the most recent filings, legal advocates including the Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen, Berkeley Law School’s Death Penalty Clinic, the Prosecutor’s Alliance, and the State Law Research Initiative & the University of San Francisco School of Law Racial Justice Clinic filed amicus briefs in support of petitioners. Previously, leading legal and legislative advocates including California Jurists, members of the California State Legislature, and the Prosecutors Alliance filed amicus briefs in support of the original writ, reiterating that the racial disparities caused by the ongoing administration of the death penalty warrant judicial review.
In April 2024, a consortium of nationally renowned civil rights organizations, legal organizations, and a law firm filed a first-of-its-kind extraordinary writ petition in the Supreme Court of California challenging the state’s death penalty statute as racially discriminatory and unconstitutional under the equal protection guarantees of the California Constitution.
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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights law organization. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Please note that LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957 — although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.
For more than 100 years, the ACLU has worked in courts, legislatures, and communities to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters, the ACLU takes on the toughest civil liberties fights in pursuit of liberty and justice for all.
The Office of the State Public Defender (OSPD), established in 1976, is a state agency charged with defending indigent people sentenced to death in California and with improving the quality of indigent defense in the state. The office has represented nearly 300 death-sentenced individuals, including over 65 people with cases currently pending before the California Supreme Court.
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