A ruling on the application of the death penalty to all first degree murders could be applied to California’s similar law
California is one of thirty-one states in the United States that currently has the death penalty. After surviving two voter initiatives to overturn the capital punishment law in 2012 and 2016, the future of the death penalty may be in jeopardy if the United States Supreme Court agrees to hear an Arizona case involving a law that is similar to California’s death penalty statute.
Under the Arizona law, nearly every defendant in a first-degree murder case can be subject to capital punishment, or the death penalty. According to the lawsuit filed by a man convicted of two first degree murders, this violates United States Supreme Court rulings that limit the application of the death penalty to only the worst kind of murders. Because California’s death penalty law is similar to Arizona’s — although not quite as broad — if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case and strikes down the law, it could also apply to California’s law. According to a California criminal defense lawyer, if four or more Supreme Court justices agree to hear the challenge to Arizona’s law, then the Court will schedule arguments and issue a ruling on the matter.
In California, the majority of people who commit the crime of murder are eligible for the death penalty. However, in 1972 and again in 1976, the United States Supreme Court ruled that in order to be constitutional, death penalty statutes must not define capital crimes so broadly so as to give prosecutors and juries essentially unlimited discretion as to which murders should be punished by death. If that was the case, then punishments could be affected by politics, geography and race. In 2005, the Supreme Court held that death sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional, finding that as a matter of law, juveniles could not reasonable be “classified among the worst offenders.”
In the Arizona case, the defendant, Abel Hidalgo, submitted evidence demonstrating that in the county where he was prosecuted, Maricopa, 99% pf all first degree murders could have been prosecuted as capital crimes. This appears to give prosecutors and jurors a blank check to decide which murders should be punished by the death penalty — which is exactly what the Supreme Court warned against in its holdings.
If the Supreme Court does agree to hear the Hidalgo case and overturns the Arizona law, then the death penalty statute in California would likely be overturned. However, the issue would likely go back before California voters, who would then make a choice as to whether they believe that the death penalty should be used in the state.
The death penalty is a complex topic, and has many arguments both for and against it. Wherever you stand on the subject, we can all agree that anyone charged with a crime punishable by death should have the highest quality California criminal defense lawyer possible. If you have been charged with a capital crime in California, the Chambers Law Firm can help. Contact us today at 714-760-4088 or dchambers@clfca.com to schedule a free initial consultation.
