About 2,000 homicides have been committed in Santa Clara County since 1978, but only 15 killers — the worst of the worst — are under sentence of death for the murders they committed during that period. District Attorney Jeff Rosen wants to overturn those sentences. His reasons are inconsistent, artificial and without legal basis.
Earlier this month, Rosen realized, seemingly for the first time, that the death penalty is irreversible. According to him, this leads to the death penalty violating due process. The Supreme Courts of the United States and California, however, ruled otherwise. Although Rosen is free to disapprove of these decisions, his responsibilities to the public are properly defined not by his personal opinions but by the law as enacted by voters and interpreted by the courts.
Rosen believes it is unfair to uphold the death sentences handed down by Santa Clara juries between 1978 and 2020, because for the past four years he has refused to seek that sentence against anyone, no matter how heinous their crimes. He believes that “it violates equality before the law to see people serving a death sentence when they would not receive such a sentence today for the same behavior.” Therefore, he argues, all murderers must now be spared in order to treat people who have committed similar crimes equally.
But the different treatment Rosen deplores is entirely of his own making. Giving the back of his hand since 2020 to a law that he does not like was his first mistake. This is one he should correct in the future, not make it worse by extending it to previous verdicts.
Justice can be slow
Rosen also insists that the still-slow pace of solving capital cases requires overturning every death sentence. It does not mean anything. Some delay in capital trials is necessary to ensure fairness, but excessive delays are usually designed for the convenience of prisoners on death row and their lawyers. Blockages on the path to justice are regrettable, even if they are sometimes necessary; canceling the entire trip due to their appearance is beyond absurd.
The prosecutor has tried to assure the public that prisoners whose death sentences he hopes to reduce will remain incarcerated without any possibility of release. But since 2020, the governor has granted clemency to 15 prisoners serving life sentences — supposedly without the possibility of parole — so that they could be released on parole or at least have a chance at parole. conditional.
Rosen has no reason to believe that the murderers sentenced to death by the Santa Clara juries are innocent, and he admits that each of them might well deserve their punishment. Yet he seeks to overturn jury verdicts and decades of tireless review by numerous state and federal judges because he has lost faith in the reliability and fairness of the death penalty.
Saying he’s not sure these verdicts weren’t “reached without racial bias,” Rosen assumes they were, assuming “that implicit bias and structural racism played some role.” But suspicions like those raised by Rosen could be confirmed or dispelled by following the procedures laid out for this purpose in California’s Racial Justice Act. Rosen did not explain why he believes prisoners should circumvent this provision or why anyone should jump to the conclusion that racism has infected the sentences imposed on his county’s 15 capital murderers — more than half of whom are white.
The voters decided
There’s something else going on here, and in a recent interview Rosen gave up: “I just started to feel like we don’t have the moral authority as a society to execute someone.” »
California voters, however, feel differently. They said it when they passed the current death penalty law in 1978, again when they rejected a ballot measure to abolish that law in 2012, and again in 2016 when they not only rejected a second repeal measure, but also approved a competing measure designed to expedite capital cases.
In our democracy, it is the opinions of voters, not the personal policy preferences of prosecutors, that have decisive moral and legal force. District attorneys are allowed – even required – to evaluate the circumstances of each individual case in an effort to achieve justice. But they do not have the power to summarily overturn the broader political judgments entrusted to the citizens they are sworn to serve. Rosen needs to show a little humility and start acting like he understands this.
Now retired, Ron Matthias served as Senior Assistant Attorney General and Capital Litigation Coordinator from 2007 to 2019. He served as lead counsel for the State in numerous capital appeals, including that of William Dennis, whose imminent death sentence is one of those that Rosen seeks to obtain. reduced.
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