7/18/2019 End Death Penalty LA END DEATH PENALTY LA July 17, 2019 75 Law Professors and Legal Scholars Call for an End to the Death Penalty in Los Angeles County LOS ANGELES A group of 75 law professors and legal scholars from leading institutions have released an open letter calling for Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey to end the county?s costly and racially?biased death penalty practices. Los Angeles County produces more death sentences than anywhere else in the country and, shockingly, DA Lacey continues to pursue the death penalty despite Governor Gavin Newsom?s statewide 1/12 7/18/2019 End Death Penalty LA moratorium on the death penalty issued earlier this yeah The American death penalty is broken in every way. Look closely: in case after case, the accused is either intellectually disabled with an IQ below 75, severely mentally ill, has experienced extraordinary and unspeakable sexual or physical abuse, or shows signs of all of the above. We execute not the worst of the worst, as the Supreme Court has mandated, but society?s most vulnerable and least lucky. In trial after trial, lawyers fail to provide effective representation for their clients. They conduct no investigation into the case, spend little time with the client or their family, and often present little to no testimony at trial or during the sentencing phase. Over 165 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973. In part because of ineffective representation, it is more likely that those individuals will have their cases overturned than have the state actually execute them. This deplorable lawyering also means that in far too many cases, the jury does not understand the full extent of a person?s impairments and illness. While the jury?s ability to evaluate ?the characteristics of the person who committed the crime? is a constitutionally necessary, ?bedrock premise on which our system of capital punishment depends,? Elmore v. Holbrook, 137 3,11 (2016) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (citing Gregg v. Georgia, 428 ((joint opinion of 2/12 7/ 18/2019 End Death Penalty LA Stewart, Powell, and Stevens), frequently the presence of apparent mental illness, cognitive impairments, or extreme trauma goes unacknowledged by counsel and, as a result, unknown by jurors deciding his or her fate. The ultimate punishment is also becoming increasingly arbitrary and obsolete. There are 327 million people in this country and in a year, around 16,000 homicides, but juries returned death sentences in just 42 murder cases last year. Compare that to 315 in 1996. Over 21 jurisdictions, most recently, New Hampshire, have abolished it. Four jurisdictions, including California, have issued a moratorium on executions. And eight jurisdictions, including the federal government, have shown substantial disuse. It is also imposed in a geographically arbitrary way: of the 3,000 counties in this country, death sentences came from just 36 last year. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits a system of punishment that is cruel and unusual, and that is what our system of capital punishment is. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to effective counsel, a right that becomes more important where death is the final sentence, and yet capital defendants rarely receive it. It is time for us to stop pretending that the death penalty can or should work. Los Angeles lVlust End Its Unconstitutional Death Penalty Machine. tyla.com/ 3/ 12 7/ 18/2019 End Death Penalty LA In Los Angeles, District Attorney Jackie Lacey seeks the death penalty with an enthusiasm and consistency unmatched by many of her counterparts across the country, as documented in the recent death penalty report. The nexus of capital punishment in this country resides not in Texas, Georgia, or Oklahoma, but in Los Angeles County, California. As academics and legal scholars acutely aware of its failings, we are deeply disturbed by this practice. Not only does Lacey seek and obtain the death penalty more often that almost any other prosecutor, those sentenced to death under her watch have been exclusively people of color. She pursues the death penalty in the face of terrible defense lawyering and notwithstanding a moratorium on executions in California. She persists in this policy even though a majority of Los Angeles county voters favored the abolition of capital punishment in both 2012 and 2016. We call for an end to this practice in Los Angeles County. As Justice Stephen Breyer noted recently in a dissent from a denial of certiorari, ?[the] geographic concentration of [death sentences] reflects a nationwide trend. Death Sentences, while declining in number, have become increasingly concentrated in an ever-smaller number of counties.? Jordan v. Mississippi, 585 US. (2018). Nowhere is that more true than in Los Angeles County, which has produced more death sentences than anywhere in America, and it is one of three counties to have over 10 death sentences in the last five years, putting it in tyla.com/ 4/ 12 7/18/2019 End Death Penalty LA the class of just Riverside, California, and lVlaricopa, Arizona. It is the only place where prosecutors obtained more than one death sentence in 2018. All of this occurred under the watch of the current District Attorney, Jackie Lacey. The ACLU report also shows that Los Angeles disproportionately imposes the death penalty against people of color. Since 2012, juries have never sentenced a white person to death, but they have sentenced thirteen people who are Latinx, eight people who are black, and one who is Asian to death by the state. And prosecutors treat the death of a white person differently than the death of a black person: when white people are killed in Los Angeles, those found responsible are sentenced to death at a significantly higher rate than when the victim is non- white. Not only do these practices violate the Eighth Amendment, they also implicate the Constitutional guarantee of Equal Protection under the law. People who receive death sentences in Los Angeles County largely received ineffective assistance of counsel. Defending an accused in a death penalty case requires an extremely skilled trial lawyer with expertise in trauma, mental health, and investigation. The accused in Los Angeles receive abhorrent counsel in case after case. Of the 22 people LA sent to death row since 2012, five had lawyers who have previously been suspended or disbarred. One lawyer is currently under investigation by the state licensing agency, and two of the accused represented themselves, a frequent sign of a person with a 5/12 7/ 18/2019 End Death Penalty LA defense team ill-equipped to handle mental illness or the seriousness of the work. Only three men received representation from institutional public defense organizations--offices with specialized training and staff dedicated to capital cases. Luck of the draw should not determine whether a person lives or dies? -but in Los Angeles, it does. These cases are rife with likely violations of the accused/s Sixth Amendment right to counsel. We are disheartened that prosecutors repeatedly and routinely seek such a sentence in the face of such substandard representation. The District Attorney Must Stop Seeking Sentences of Death Time and again, we have seen that the administration of the death penalty violates these foundational pillars of the criminal justice system, namely, the right to counsel and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The death penalty is cruel in its treatment of society?s most broken. It is unusual in its geographic and racial application. And it is imposed not on those who are the worst of the worst, but on those with the least effective counsel. The recent study of the death penalty in Los Angeles only illustrates the problem. A prosecutor's job, first and foremost, is to seek justice and uphold the constitution. By leading the nation in its use of the death penalty, the District Attorney?s office in Los Angeles violates its solemn tyla.com/ 6/ 12 7/18/2019 End Death Penalty LA oath. We call on the office to end the county?s experiment with the broken machinery of death. ACLU death penalty report: shows?la?county?top Signed, with institutional affiliation listed for identification purposes only, by the following: Priscilla Ocen, Professor of Law, Loyola Law School Los Angeles Jeffrey Fagan, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School Deborah L. Rhode, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School Matiangai Sirleaf, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh Law School Issa Kohler-Hausmann, Associate Professor of Law and Sociology, Yale University Chaz Arnett, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law John H. Blume, Samuel F. Leibowtiz Professor of Trial Techniques, Cornell Law School Ronald Tyler, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School Robert W. Gordon, Professor Of Law, Stanford Law School Dan Simon, Richard L. and Maria B. Crutcher Professor of Law and USC John Donahue, Carlsmith Professor of Law, Stanford Sam Erman, Professor of Law, USC Niels W. Frenzen, Sydney M. and Audrey lVl. Irmas 7/12 7/18/2019 End Death Penalty LA Endowed Clinical Professor of Law Director, USC Immigration Clinic, USC Ariela Cross, John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History, USC Laura Riley, Director of Experiential Learning and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law, USC Rob Saltzman, Professor of Lawyering Skills, Emeritus, USC Wayne Sandholtz, John A. McCone Chair in International Relations and Professor of International Relations and Law, USC Alicia Virani, Associate Director of Criminal Justice Program, UCLA Law Jasleen Kohli, Director of Critical Race Studies Program, UCLA Law Katherine Tinto, Director of the Criminal Justice Clinic, UC Irvine Hadar Aviram, Thomas Miller '73 Professor of Law, Hastings Samantha Buckingham, Director of Juvenile Justice Clinic, Loyola Professor Bill Hing, Director of Immigration Deportation Defense Clinic, USF Deborah Archer, Associate Professor of Clinical Law, NYU Jennifer Chacon, Professor of Law, UCLA Law Sara Mayeux, Vanderbilt, Asst. Prof. of Law, Asst. Prof. History Sharon Dolovich, Professor of Prison Law Policy, UCLA Law Song Richardson, Dean 81 Chancellor?s Prof. of Law, UC Irvine 8/12 7/18/2019 End Death Penalty LA Eric Miller, Prof. of Law and Leo J. O'Brien Fellow, Loyola Daniel S. Medwed, Northeastern, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice Robert J. Pushaw, James Wilson Endowed Professor of Law, Pepperdine Professor Mark Osler, Univ. St. Thomas School of Law, Professor and Robert and Marion Short Distinguished Chair in Law Michael Vitiello, Distinguished Professor of Law, McCeorge Ronald Sullivan, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Criminal Justice Institute, Harvard Professor Eve Brensike Primus, Univ. Michigan Law, Professor of Law James Forman Jr., Skelly Wright Professor of Law, Yale Chris Roberts, Univ. of Texas, Clinical Prof; Director, Criminal Defense Clinic Katy Dyer, Univ. of Texas, Clinical Professor, Criminal Defense Clinic Ranjana Natarajan, Univ. of Texas, Clinical Professor; Director, Civil Rights Clinic Anthony C. Thompson, Professor of Clinical Law, NYU Kim A. Taylor?Thompson, Professor of Clinical Law, NYU Raoul D. Schonemann, Univ. of Texas, Clinical Professor Lee Kovarsky, Univ. of Maryland, Prof. of Law Angela J. Davis, American University, Washington College of Law, Professor of Law 9/12 7/18/2019 End Death Penalty LA Randy Hertz, Vice Dean, Professor of Clinical Law, and Director of Clinical and Advocacy Programs, NYU Vincent Southerland, Executive Director of Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law, NYU Dionne Conder?Stanley, Assistant Clinical Professor and Supervising Attorney for the Criminal Defense Clinic, North Carolina Central University School of Law Edward Telfeyan, Professor of Lawyering Skills, Director, Moot Court Program, Co?Director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution, University of the Pacific lVcheorge School of Law Joanna Schwartz, Vice Dean for Faculty Development 81 Professor of Law, UCLA Jonathan Clater, Professor of Law, UC Irvine Ellen Kreitzberg, Director of Center for Social Justice Public Service and Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law Richard Rosen, Director of Clinical Programs Associate Dean, UNC School of Law Justin D. Levinson Jan Costello, Professor of Law, Loyola Law School Los Angeles Yxta lVlaya lVlurray, Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow, Loyola Law School Los Angeles Kathleen Kim, Professor of Law, Loyola Law School Los Angeles Paul T. Hayden, Thomas V. Cirardi Professor of Consumer Protection Law, Loyola Law School Los Angeles lVlalcolm lVl. Feeley, Claire Sanders Clements Dean?s 10/12 7/18/2019 End Death Penalty LA Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law Ian Haney Lopez, Earl Warren Professor of Public Law, Director, Racial Politics Project, Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, University of California, Berkeley Law Claudia Polsky, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Environmental Law Clinic, Berkeley Law Jeff Selbin, Clinical Professor of Law; Faculty Director, Policy Advocacy Clinic, Berkeley Law Jennifer Urban, Clinical Professor Law; Director, Samuelson Law, Technology 81 Public Law Clinic; Co? Director, Berkeley Center for Law 81 Technology, Berkeley Law Kenneth W. Simons, Chancellor's Professor of Law, UC Irvine Marc Falkoff, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs 81 Professor of Law, Northern Illinois University Jim Marcus, Co-Director, Clinical Professor, University of Texas at Austin School of Law Christopher Hawthorne, Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Juvenile Innocence 81 Fair Sentencing Clinic/Loyola Law School Justin D. Levinson, Professor of Law, University of Hawaii Joceyln Simonson, Associate Professor, Brooklyn Law School Professor Theodore P. Seto, Hon. Frederick J. Lower, Jr. Chair and Professor of Law/Loyola Law School Laura Gomez, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law Sheri Johnson, James and Mark Flanagan Professor of Law, Cornell Law School 11/12 7/ 18/2019 End Death Penalty LA Professor Margaret M. Russell, Associate Provost, Santa Clara University Charles J. Press, Clinical Professor of Law, Director, Actual Innocence Clinic, University of Texas at Austin School of Law Beth A. Colgan, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law Ingrid Eagly, Professor of Law, Faculty Director, David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, UCLA School of Law tyla.com/ 12/ 12