Summary
In three cases, the California Supreme Court called for additional briefing on identical questions regarding California’s so-called Racial Justice Act. The facts of the cases and their case numbers are listed below. The sponsors of the 2020 law claimed that its purpose was to eliminate the influence of race from the criminal justice system, but the law’s actual provisions operate to defeat justice and to require discrimination on the basis of race. A subsequent amendment made the law apply retroactively to “errors” that were perfectly legal at the time of the trial. In these three cases, all tried before enactment of the law, the California Supreme Court asked about the provisions regarding (1) whether an “error” under the law would require reversal even if was it unlikely to have had any effect on the trial, and (2) whether the law’s provision barring the death penalty on retrial could operate even if the error was harmless. CJLF joined these cases to make two arguments. First, California’s law on when an error requires reversal is in the state Constitution, and the Legislature has no authority to alter it. Second, the law on which murder defendants are eligible for the death penalty is in an initiative statute approved by the people, and the California Constitution does not permit the Legislature to make exceptions or exclusions from that definition without the people’s approval. The contrary provisions of the act are unconstitutional.
People v. Bankston Bankston is a Los Angeles gang member who shot two people to death, shot and wounded a third person, and shot at a fourth person. All this carnage was merely because two of the victims were members of rival gangs and two were accompanying a rival gang member. Bankston later threatened the witnesses against him. He was sentenced to death for the two murders and prison time for the other crimes.
People v. Barrera Barrera regularly abused two of his children, Lupita and Ernesto, eventually killing them both. He beat two-year-old Lupita every day and threw her against the wall more than once. In the final beating, he threw her against the wall again, knocking her unconscious. He refused to take her to the hospital, and she died later that day. He took her to the mountains to bury her and poured acid on her body. Barrera also beat five-year-old Ernesto every day. He also deliberately starved Ernesto while feeding the numerous other children. In the final beating, he kicked Ernesto in the head, knocking his head into the wall. Ernesto died later that night. Barrera took his body to the Angeles National Forest to bury him, but he was caught by deputy sheriffs. He was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances of torture and multiple murder, and he was sentenced to death.
People v. Chhuon Chhuon was a member of a Sacramento street gang called the Tiny Rascals Gang. He and two other gangsters committed a home invasion robbery, in which they shot to death a 74-year-old man and his son and also shot the son’s wife in the hip. All the victims were unarmed. Later he committed a drive-by shooting in Pomona, killing one person and attempting to kill another. He had previously been convicted of five other murders.
