The 727 murderers on California's death row are more likely to die of old age or illness than they are likely to die from execution
A California pro-death penalty group will attempt to revive the state’s moribund executions through a ballot initiative that will circumvent California’s obstructionist courts.
DEATH PENALTY SUPPORTERS GEAR UP
By Neil Nisperos
Torrance Daily Breeze
June 15, 2013
Frustrated by a recent appeals court ruling that invalidates the state's lethal injection procedures, supporters of the death penalty in California plan to launch a campaign to bring the suspended system back to life.
Death penalty supporters hope to circumvent legal challenges to executions through a new initiative that would put in place a single-drug injection procedure for inmates condemned to death, such as the infamous Night Stalker serial killer Richard Ramirez, who died June 7 of natural causes.
Advocates of the single-injection protocol are seeking to avoid supply and legal issues related to the triple-drug protocol used prior to a 2006 moratorium on the death penalty. The ballot initiative also would reform the appellate process to ensure executions for death row inmates who have exhausted all appeals and where questions of guilt don't exist.
The proposed initiative would be carried by a coalition of law enforcement, district attorneys, and death penalty proponents who opposed Proposition 34 in the 2012 statewide election. That measure, defeated by 52 percent of voters, would have abolished the death penalty and replaced it with life in prison without parole.
"The initiative will be to streamline and fix the death penalty," said San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos, a vocal presence during the campaign opposing Proposition 34.
"As the voters have indicated, they still believe in capital punishment, and as I asked the voters to oppose Proposition 34, I told them I would do anything I could to fix the issue of delayed justice," Ramos said. "That's what happens with these families. It's not justice if it's delayed, especially in these most gruesome murders."
Legal challenges to execution procedures, raised in both state and federal courts, led to a moratorium.
More than 725 death row inmates await execution, while more than a dozen who have exhausted legal appeals are eligible for immediate execution. Ramirez, convicted in 1989, was among them before his death June 7 from liver failure at the age of 53.
Asked why Ramirez had yet to be executed, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Alan Yochelson, who helped prosecute the Night Stalker, said death penalty cases take a long time to move through the appeal process. Ramirez still had an appeal pending in federal court, Yochelson said. Prior to that, Yochelson said it wasn't until around 2007 that the state Supreme Court had affirmed the 1989 conviction after an appeal.
"Death penalty cases take a long time anyway," Yochelson said. "This case was particularly complicated."
He added, "My thoughts are with the victim's next of kin and the survivors of attacks. Their lives have been forever altered and I hope that for them we have achieved some level of justice."
Another aging member of San Quentin's death row is the South Bay's most notorious killer, Lawrence Bittaker, who was convicted more than 32 years ago. Bittaker, who tortured, raped and killed girls he picked up cruising beach highways, was condemned to death on March 22, 1981 - eight years before Ramirez. He was 40 at the time.
Bittaker and his accomplice, Roy Norris of Redondo Beach, used ice picks, vice grips, wire hangers and a sledgehammer to torment their victims after driving them into remote mountainous areas in 1979. His victims included Lucinda Schaefer, 16, of Torrance; Andrea Hall, 18, of Tujunga; Jackie Gilliam, 15, and Jacqueline Leah Lamp, 13, both of Redondo Beach; and Shirley Ledford, 16, of Sun Valley.
The state Supreme Court upheld Bittaker's conviction in June 1989. After the U.S. Supreme Court denied his petition to review the conviction, a judge set July 23, 1990, for his execution. But the execution was stayed when Bittaker filed an appeal with the U.S. District Court, where the case remains.
Norris, now 65, was sentenced to 45 years to life in prison in a deal with prosecutors to avoid the death penalty and testify against Bittaker.
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