Post by pumpkinpie on Apr 23, 2010 16:58:37 GMT -5
In California, District Attorney and Murder Victim's Father Calls Death Penalty an "Empty Promise"
Posted: April 21, 2010
In California, families of murder victims Amber Dubois and Chelsea King have opted for a life sentence without parole for the girls' killer, John Albert Gardner III. Brent King, Chelsea's father, said that agreeing with County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis not to seek the death penalty for his daugther's killer was "torturous," but so would have been a death penalty trial and years of appeals the follow. District Attorney Dumanis said there was enough evidence to convict Gardner for Chelsea's murder, but she agreed to a life sentence without parole in exchange for Gardner's confession because it was the only way to convict him of Amber's death and find her body. In explaining this difficult decision, the district attorney called California's death penalty "a hollow promise."
Since the state reinstituted the death penalty in 1978, more death row inmates (72) have died from natural causes, suicide or other reasons than by execution by lethal injection (14). On average, California's death row inmates have spent 17 years of death row. Some, like David Westerfield, would wait years before the state can appoint them legal representation. It took the state five years to appoint an attorney to represent Westerfield in his automatic appeal to the state's Supreme Court.
Dumanis said that getting a guilty plea from Gardner spared Amber and Chelsea's families the pain of trial and post-conviction appeals, and years of suffering. Among the reasons for agreeing to life imprisonment without parole in Gardner's case, Brent King cited the need for Amber's family to have closure, as well as the need to protect his teenage son from years of further trauma. He said, "While our unequivocal first choice is the death penalty, we acknowledge that in California that penalty has become an empty promise."
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/california-district-attorney-and-murder-victims-father-calls-death-penalty-empty-promise
Posted: April 21, 2010
In California, families of murder victims Amber Dubois and Chelsea King have opted for a life sentence without parole for the girls' killer, John Albert Gardner III. Brent King, Chelsea's father, said that agreeing with County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis not to seek the death penalty for his daugther's killer was "torturous," but so would have been a death penalty trial and years of appeals the follow. District Attorney Dumanis said there was enough evidence to convict Gardner for Chelsea's murder, but she agreed to a life sentence without parole in exchange for Gardner's confession because it was the only way to convict him of Amber's death and find her body. In explaining this difficult decision, the district attorney called California's death penalty "a hollow promise."
Since the state reinstituted the death penalty in 1978, more death row inmates (72) have died from natural causes, suicide or other reasons than by execution by lethal injection (14). On average, California's death row inmates have spent 17 years of death row. Some, like David Westerfield, would wait years before the state can appoint them legal representation. It took the state five years to appoint an attorney to represent Westerfield in his automatic appeal to the state's Supreme Court.
Dumanis said that getting a guilty plea from Gardner spared Amber and Chelsea's families the pain of trial and post-conviction appeals, and years of suffering. Among the reasons for agreeing to life imprisonment without parole in Gardner's case, Brent King cited the need for Amber's family to have closure, as well as the need to protect his teenage son from years of further trauma. He said, "While our unequivocal first choice is the death penalty, we acknowledge that in California that penalty has become an empty promise."
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/california-district-attorney-and-murder-victims-father-calls-death-penalty-empty-promise
