California Death Penalty Struck Down based on “Death Row Phenomenon”
Last Wednesday, a federal judge in California declared the state’s administration of the death penalty to be unconstitutional. Critical to the decision are the delays in exercise of the dealth penalty in California, which currently run up to 25 years after sentencing. Finding such delays to violate the 8th’s amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, the Court looks only to domestic precedent and does not explicitly address human rights law. However, as litigation of this issue continues in California and elsewhere, we can expect that the human rights arguments will gain wider attention.
The delays in California are well-documented and have even been the subject of human rights investigations. For example, in 2013, the International Federation of Human Rights Organizations (FIDH) and the Center for Constitutional Rights conducted a fact-finding mission in California and Louisiana to investigate human rights violations in administration of the death penalty. A section of the report specifically reviews the extraordinary delays in the California system, some of which are caused by the dearth of qualified attorneys to handle the prisoners’ post-conviction appeals.
There is also substantial international jurisprudence on the human rights impact of prolonged time on death row. The European Court of Human Rights has found excessive delays in death penalty administration to constitute torture and inhumane treatment in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights. According to Columbia Professor Sarah Cleveland, quoted in the New York Times in 2011, “the ‘death row phenomenon’ — including lengthy time on death row — has been recognized as inhuman punishment and illegal throughout Europe since the 1980s.” A number of scholarly articles and advocacy reports synthesize this research on the “death row phenomenon.”
Past efforts to challenge delays in California have been unsuccessful, and state courts have repeatedly rejected assertions that the delays in death penalty administration violate federal, state and international human rights law. However, last Wednesday’s ruling may signal a dramatic change in that posture. Importantly, the relevant international law makes clear that there is even more support for the District Court’s position than is apparent on the face of the decision.