Voluntary Executions

Voluntary Executions

Legal executions in Californian were authorized under the criminal practice act of 1851. On Feb. 14, 1872 capital punishment was incorporated into the penal code. In 1937, the legislature provided that lethal gas replace hanging with August 27, 1937 as the effective date. The only lethal gas chamber in the state was constructed at San Quentin. The first execution by lethal gas was conducted December 2, 1938. From that date through 1967 a total of 194 persons were executed by gas, all at San Quentin. This total includes four women. For 25 years after 1967 there were no executions in California due to various state and United States Supreme Court decisions.

In 1972 the California Supreme Court found that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the state constitution. As a result 107 individuals had their sentences changed to other than death. In November 1972, nine months after the decision, the California electorate amended that state constitution and overruled the state supreme court. The California State legislature re-enacted the death penalty statue in 1977. Under the new statue, evidence in mitigation was permitted. In January 1993, a new law went into effect allowing inmates to choose lethal injection or lethal gas as the method of execution. In October 1994, an U.S. District Judge, Northern District (San Francisco) ruled that the gas chamber was cruel and unusual punishment, barring the state from using that method of execution. (State)

“ This clearly permits the death penalty to be imposed and establishes beyond doubt that the death penalty is not one of the cruel and unusual punishment’s prohibited by the Eighth amendment. (Scalia)

When the nation was younger, criminal routinely were put to death in public. Now, state prison officials and news media representives are locked in a fight over just how public today’s death row executions should be. News media groups in California contend that have a constitution right to witness executions in their entirety. But state officials have won court permission to bar reporters and the public until moments before poison is pumped into a condemned inmate’s veins. A federal appeals court recently ruled that California officials could bar the public and press while preparing inmates for death. The process takes about 20 minutes and includes strapping inmates onto a gurney and inserting tubes into the condemned inmates veins that will carry the lethal drugs. (Carelli)

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the public and news media have little-if any-constitutional right to see an execution, although the judges stopped short of saying whether a state could bar reporters from executions altogether.