Criminal
Jun. 22, 2002
State Exclusion Of Executions Now Probable
SACRAMENTO - The Supreme Court's ban on executing the mentally retarded has suddenly revived hopes of passing a bill in the Legislature to achieve the same end.
In California, prior legislative attempts to prohibit executing retarded convicts have failed, including a bill last year introduced by Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley. Lacking support from moderate Democrats, Aroner's bill, AB1512, died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee last May.
But in reaction to the high court's decision Thursday, Aroner said she will quickly amend one of her bills pending before the Senate.
"We are going to put language in the bill to reflect what we believe the Supreme Court said - that it is up to the states to implement this decision," Aroner said.
In the 6-3 majority opinion in Atkins v. Virginia, 2002 DJDAR 6937, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote: "As was our approach in Ford v. Wainwright, with regard to insanity, we leave to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction upon its execution of sentences."
In accordance with that statement, Aroner's new proposal might simply provide a "framework" of definitions and criteria for judges to use in determining whether a defendant is mentally retarded, said Hans Hemann, her chief of staff,.
Keeping the bill limited might also avoid the requirement that changes to the state's death penalty law, which was adopted by a voter initiative in 1978, must be submitted to voters for approval, Hemann said.
Aroner's bill, AB557, could be amended and heard by the Senate Public Safety Committee as early as Tuesday.
Because of the Supreme Court's decision, the measure stands a much greater chance of winning final approval by the Legislature than did earlier measures.
In addition to Aroner's bill last year, a similar measure introduced in 1993 by former Assemblyman Phil Isenberg, D-Sacramento, was defeated on the Assembly floor.
But even prosecutors who were staunch opponents of the Aroner and Isenberg bills say they now are unlikely to oppose Aroner's new proposal.
"Provided her bill is consistent with the Supreme Court's decision, I can't imagine there would be opposition," said David LaBahn, deputy director of the California District Attorneys Association.
"If it goes farther, we would certainly voice our opposition," he said.
Eighteen states, including Florida and Arizona, now ban executing the mentally retarded, and other states, California among them, have considered such a ban.
The Supreme Court's decision Thursday was based largely on these facts.
"It is not so much the number of these states that is significant, but the consistency of the direction of the change," Stevens wrote.
"Given that anticrime legislation is far more popular than legislation protecting violent criminals, the large number of States prohibiting the execution of mentally retarded persons ... provides powerful evidence that today society views mentally retarded offenders as categorically less culpable than the average criminal," he wrote.
Although Aroner's bill from last year did not pass, it was strategically timed to coincide with the Atkins case, she said.
"What we were told was that the Supreme Court needed to believe there was a consensus developing among the states," Aroner said. "We felt moving the bill sent a signal that a discussion was going on in California.
"Joining with other states obviously made a difference," she said. "The 6-3 vote made it very clear."
Hudson Sangree
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