THE MYTH OF DELAY

Ask anyone in California about the DEATH PENALTY and there's a good chance you'll hear the common complaint of how long it takes to actually process all of the capital appeals and get to the execution. Most proponents of the death penalty believe the myth, that people on the row have "High Powered" attorneys who work endlessly to drag out appeals as a way to dodge execution and help out criminals while making money along the way. The truth is, most of the delays are caused by the State of California itself through a systematic denial of due process of the law. The California Supreme Court is the key figure to blame for this, not the men and women condemned to death.

California reinstated the DEATH PENALTY in 1978. Two decades later, the state government began to tear down the appeal process one bite at a time. In 1987 a bill series was passed by California State Legislators that aided in the restructuring of the funding process associated with this system. Prosecutors and police received more money while public defenders got a budget cut.

Designed to examine cases and locate attorneys for capital appeals, the Southern California offices of C.A.P. (California Appellate Project) was hit the hardest. The California Supreme Court's function was and is to appoint counsel and allocate funding. The state legislators moved to cut 80% of the funding to C.A.P. and created significant impediments. The ability to obtain attorneys for capital appeals has decayed.

By 1990, the funding had all but ceased in this project and the state continued to slash its budget throughout the system, taking C.A.P. in Northern California, much the same way it did to their other office. The government took avantage to start centralizing the entire system with the California Supreme Court as its core, then Chief Justice Ronald M. George urged politicians to place all power pertaining to capital appeals in the hands of the California Supreme Court, claiming that the court would be more efficient than C.A.P. as well as the people who'd been doing it since 1978. A s a result, C.A.P. lost all ability to participate in anything to do with attorneys, simple becoming research appendages for the public defenders' office. This allowed Ronald Georges' court to gain control.

Almost immediately, the entire process ground to a halt. The Supreme Court had no idea what to do and cases began to pile up. In 1993, the George court concluded that having just one set of attorneys (one on direct and the other on Habeas), created hope that might provide incentives for attorneys to "seek out" cases, but just the opposite occurred. The number shrunk due to poor funding and the restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court. More tax dollars flowed through the criminal justice system that ever before yet none of it reached capital appeals. Nearly everything stopped and soon there were more people on DEATH ROW without representation on appeal than those with attorneys --- all, courtesy of the state legislature and the George court.

The introduction of new D.N.A. evidence and "three strikes" laws began to congest the prison population. More money was sent to the Department of Corrections and plans to appoint qualified counsel to represent condemned inmates on appeal faded. By 1995, there were some 430 people on death row and 200+- had NO legal representation. The wait was said to be some six or more years just to obtain an attorney on your "automatic appeal". This situation repeated itself all over the country, leading the federal government to intervene. Then, President bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress passed the "Anti-Terrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996", a bill slashing the whole appeals process to pieces. The argument was, "less appeal action means quicker executions". States were now required to qualify under strict compliance regulations set forth in the bill. California passed SB513, a bill designed to create a Habeas Resource Center and to allocate more funds to attorneys and private investigators but naturally, the state legislature found a way to fudge this up by refusing to und the center for the first year and a half, all while people sentenced as far back as 1991 still went without counsel to begin their appeals.

The courts and the California Legislature weren't alone in creating this mess. Media harlots took every opportunity to propagate our governments' assertion that courts didn't have the power to push appeals through, and that the so-called "High Power" attorneys continued to delay the execution process whenever possible. In 1998, the Common Wealth Club of California, entertained Chief Justice George and allowed him to recite lies, claiming "the reasons that appeals take so long, is that lower courts fail to correct trial transcripts, leaving the workload to appeal attorneys", but the truth is, the process of record correction was put in the hands of the Supreme Court by George himself in 1994. More proof that hte real fault for appeal delays lie in the government, NOT the prisoners or their attorneys (or lack of them).

Budget cuts, death chamber reconstruction, and lethal cocktail protocol arguments have pulled the few attorneys available, away from working directly on appeals while delays grow and the court continues refusing appointments of counsel on appeal. Many people believe these appeals delays are the attorneys' faults --- they are not.

Since 1978, the number of special circumstances which make a murder eligible for the death penalty has quadrupled while prosecutors abilities to send someone to Death Row has increased dramatically. Still nothing is being done to assist prisoners with the appeal process. Today, there are over 750 condemned prisoners and nearly 300 are without representation. Contrary to common myth, this is NOT the fault of the prisoner, but rather, the state. The government has effectively broken its own system.

The next time you hear someone say that death row prisoners take too long to execute because their "High Powered" attorneys take too long to drag out the process, challenge them. Open the door for them to learn the real reason --- California's system remains dysfunctional, shoving people through the gates of corrupt justice. If this system is to ever be fixed, we MUST be part of the solution and deal with the problem --- The California Supreme Court.

Stephen Hajek
PAPCO Contributing Writer
San Quentin State Prison (Death Row)