Back in 2019, Newsom halted executions statewide with an executive order, a move underscored by the dismantling of San Quentin’s lethal injection gurney and gas chamber. That decision left many Californians with the impression that capital punishment here was essentially over. It wasn’t. Today, 546 men and 18 women remain on California’s death row, caught in a system that satisfies almost no one — too broken to carry out executions, yet too politically fraught to be dismantled.

That standoff stems largely from a divide between tough-on-crime district attorneys in conservative counties who continue to pursue death sentences and a more liberal state leadership unwilling to carry them out. The result has been two decades without a single execution and a backlog of appeals that keeps growing.

Now, with his term ending, Newsom is facing calls from California activists and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, urging him to commute all death sentences before leaving office. Doing so would convert those sentences to life without parole, protecting inmates from execution even if a future governor supports resuming the practice. It would also be one of the most consequential moves of Newsom’s political career — a single act that would reduce the nation’s death row population by more than a quarter, dwarfing similar clemency actions taken by other governors, and even eclipsing President Joe Biden’s decision to commute 37 federal death sentences before leaving the White House.

Unlike Biden, however, Newsom can’t act entirely on his own. Because more than half of the relevant cases involve inmates with multiple felony convictions, the California Supreme Court would need to sign off on those commutations. And looming over the entire decision is politics: Newsom is widely expected to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, and a decision this large carries risk no matter which direction he takes.

Newsom’s office declined to answer direct questions about his plans. Spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo said in a statement that the governor has “been clear about his position on the death penalty since his first year in office, when he ordered a moratorium on executions. He believes that intentionally killing another person is a reprehensible act.”

An analysis by The Marshall Project and CalMatters of roughly 9,000 death sentences imposed nationwide found troubling patterns in California stretching back half a century — patterns Newsom himself has criticized during his time in office. Compared with other states, California courts have exonerated or reduced sentences for a much smaller share of death row inmates. Death sentences here fall disproportionately on Black and Latino defendants, and whether someone receives such a sentence often has more to do with which county prosecutes the case than with the severity of the crime itself.

Just before taking office, Newsom told CalMatters that he had asked his predecessor, Jerry Brown, to “solve this problem.” Brown never did. Now Newsom finds himself facing the same dilemma — one where any decision carries political consequences.

No California governor has granted clemency to a death row inmate since Ronald Reagan did so in 1967. After the U.S. Supreme Court forced states nationwide to overhaul their capital punishment laws in the 1970s, California reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Over the following five decades, prosecutors persuaded juries to sentence more than 1,000 people to death, yet the state has carried out only 13 executions.

That gap is largely a product of California’s political geography. Conservative counties elect district attorneys who pursue capital cases aggressively, but the authority to carry out executions ultimately rests with governors, who answer to a statewide electorate that leans considerably more Democratic.

Even with legal challenges and Newsom’s moratorium in place, some counties have continued sending new capital cases through the courts. More than 200 people have been sentenced to death in California since the state’s last execution in 2006.

Voters narrowly rejected two separate ballot measures, in 2012 and 2016, that would have abolished the death penalty outright. A third measure, also on the 2016 ballot, sought to speed up executions by shortening the appeals process, but it failed to provide adequate funding for defense attorneys to handle the caseload. Amid this tug-of-war, the number of unresolved capital cases has swelled for years, straining the state budget in the process.

California now spends roughly $200 million annually on legal costs tied to capital cases, even though most death row inmates are still waiting to be assigned an attorney, according to a 2025 report from the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, which represents people appealing death sentences. Providing legal counsel to every person currently on death row would likely cost the state more than half a billion dollars.

With no executions taking place and few successful appeals, California’s share of the nation’s death row population has climbed dramatically over the decades. Today, more people sit on death row in California than in any other state.

Newsom has long been an outspoken critic of capital punishment, citing racial disparities, the enormous cost of trials and appeals, and the risk of executing innocent people.

In 2022, he signed legislation making it easier for incarcerated people whose cases were tainted by racial bias to challenge their sentences. He had previously stated that “California’s death penalty system is, and has always been, infected by racism.” In the years since, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office conducted an extensive review of capital cases dating back to the 1980s and found that prosecutors had systematically excluded Black and Jewish jurors from many of those trials, deeming them unsympathetic to the death penalty. Twenty defendants from those cases have since been resentenced, and at least two are now pursuing multimillion-dollar civil lawsuits.

Meanwhile, a coalition of civil rights groups has filed suit arguing that racial disparities in death sentencing violate the state constitution. Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court directed a lower court in Sacramento to examine those claims, which draw on research showing Black defendants are up to 8.7 times more likely than others to receive a death sentence for similar crimes, and Latino defendants up to 6.2 times more likely.

Newsom has also raised concerns about the geographic randomness of who receives a death sentence — noting that outcome often hinges less on the crime itself than on which county’s district attorney chooses to pursue capital punishment. An analysis by The Marshall Project and CalMatters found that since 1987, when the state began tracking county-level homicide data, someone who committed a killing in Riverside County was four times more likely to be sentenced to death than someone who committed a similar crime in neighboring Los Angeles County.

At least 25 people have been sentenced to death since Newsom’s moratorium took effect, 11 of them in Riverside County. District attorneys remain free to pursue new capital cases unless California voters abolish the death penalty through a future ballot measure.

Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin’s office did not respond to a request for comment. In the past, however, Hestrin has defended local control over such decisions, telling The Sacramento Bee in 2016 that “criminal justice policy should reflect the community as much as possible, because it’s personal.” More recently, Hestrin, a Republican, has argued that Newsom’s moratorium “subverted the express will of the people” and “reopened fresh wounds for the families of homicide victims.”

Those kinds of statements offer a preview of the political backlash Newsom could face if he commutes a large number of death sentences, particularly if he runs for president. Some of the underlying cases could easily become fodder for attack ads — among them Richard Allen Davis, convicted of murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993. Her father, Marc Klaas, has been a vocal critic of Newsom’s moratorium.

“I think he has to consider how this would look in other parts of the country if he granted clemency,” said Garry South, a longtime California political strategist who worked on Newsom’s first gubernatorial campaign in 2008. “He doesn’t want to create a problem — even a false one — that lets his opponents in 2028 claim he let murderers loose in his own state.” Notably, commuting a death sentence wouldn’t release anyone from prison; those affected would instead serve life without the possibility of parole.

On the other hand, Newsom could also choose to grant clemency to inmates whose claims of innocence have drawn significant public support. One such case is Kevin Cooper, sentenced to death for a quadruple murder in Chino Hills in 1983. High-profile supporters, including Kim Kardashian and columnist Nicholas Kristof, have argued that Cooper was framed by San Bernardino County law enforcement — an accusation local authorities have repeatedly denied. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing in the case, but the results were inconclusive. An outside legal review commissioned by the state reaffirmed Cooper’s guilt, though that review itself drew criticism over questions of bias and other shortcomings.

Experts on capital punishment note that Newsom likely doesn’t have enough time left in office to review every case individually, suggesting his final decision may come down to an all-or-nothing choice. Biden, by contrast, granted clemency to 37 people but declined to do so for three inmates convicted in high-profile mass killings.

Opponents of the death penalty argue that a sweeping commutation could actually help Newsom in a competitive Democratic presidential primary. “The voters he’ll need to win over in a Democratic primary would likely see this as a bold, principled move,” said Natasha Minsker, a former ACLU attorney who now lobbies against capital punishment in California. “They’re looking for candidates who act on their values instead of just playing it safe politically.”

If Newsom chooses not to act, the unresolved question of California’s death penalty will fall to his successor. Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra, who supported capital punishment during his time as state attorney general, has said he would extend the current moratorium if elected governor. His Republican opponent, Steve Hilton, has said he would lift the moratorium despite personally opposing the death penalty. That leaves the future of executions in California uncertain, regardless of who wins.

And if Newsom leaves office without taking action, he will hand off an unresolved and deeply contentious issue — with hundreds of death penalty cases still in limbo, and neither side of the debate satisfied.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Holds a Quarter of the Nation’s Death Row Inmates. Will Newsom Grant Clemency? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Back in 2019, Newsom halted executions statewide and had the gas chamber’s chair hauled out of San Quentin. To many observers, that seemed like the death knell for capital punishment in California. But the reality on the ground tells a different story: 546 men and 18 women remain under active death sentences in the state, according to a new joint analysis by The Marshall Project and CalMatters. That’s roughly a quarter of every death sentence currently on the books nationwide.

Now, with his time in the governor’s office winding down, Newsom faces a decision with enormous consequences. Advocacy groups, both local and international, are pressing him to commute all 562 death sentences to life without the possibility of parole before he leaves. Such a move would align with his long-standing opposition to executions and would ripple far beyond California’s borders. It would also be a politically loaded gamble for a governor widely believed to be eyeing a run for the White House.

The irony isn’t lost on Newsom himself. Before he took office, he told CalMatters he had urged then-Gov. Jerry Brown to tackle the death penalty issue once and for all. Brown didn’t, and now the unresolved question has landed squarely in Newsom’s lap.

As Marshall Project journalists Maurice Chammah and Jill Castellano put it in their analysis, California has ended up with “a bloated, dysfunctional system that satisfies virtually nobody” — neither the state’s outright abolitionists nor supporters of capital punishment who want to see sentences actually carried out.

Complicating matters further, local district attorneys haven’t stopped seeking death sentences despite the moratorium. At least 25 people have been condemned to death in California since Newsom’s 2019 order, and 11 of those cases came out of Riverside County alone — a reminder that the Inland Empire remains a significant battleground in the state’s capital punishment debate.

Ending new death sentences altogether would require voters to repeal the punishment through a statewide ballot measure, something that hasn’t gained enough traction to date.

If Newsom leaves office without granting clemency, the unresolved fate of California’s death row will fall to whoever succeeds him. Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who backed the death penalty during his tenure as attorney general, has said he would keep the moratorium in place if elected governor. Republican candidate Steve Hilton, meanwhile, has indicated he would lift the moratorium — even though he says he personally opposes capital punishment.

For now, the question of whether California will empty its death row or continue in this legal limbo remains unanswered, leaving hundreds of inmates, their families, and crime victims’ families waiting for clarity that may not come until a new governor takes office.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Newsom Halted Executions Years Ago. Could Full Abolition Be Next? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Newsom made headlines in 2019 when he ordered a moratorium on executions, calling the state’s capital punishment system a failure. The gas chamber chair and lethal injection gurney were hauled out of San Quentin State Prison in a moment that seemed to signal the death penalty’s demise in California. But the reality is far messier. Some 546 men and 18 women remain under death sentences, and a handful of counties — Riverside chief among them — have continued to pursue capital cases even after the moratorium took effect.

Advocacy groups, including international human rights organizations, are now urging Newsom to commute all of those sentences before he leaves office, converting them to life without parole. Such a move would be unprecedented in scale, reducing the nationwide death row population by roughly a quarter and dwarfing similar clemency actions, including President Joe Biden’s decision to commute 37 federal death sentences before leaving the White House.

Unlike Biden, however, Newsom cannot act unilaterally. More than half of the state’s death penalty cases involve defendants with multiple felony convictions, meaning the California Supreme Court would need to sign off on any commutations. And looming over the entire decision is Newsom’s widely anticipated run for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination — a political reality that complicates any move he might make.

Asked directly about the possibility of mass commutations, Newsom’s office declined to answer. Spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo said only that the governor “has been clear about his position on the death penalty since his first year in office” and “believes the intentional killing of another person is wrong.”

A joint investigation by The Marshall Project and CalMatters, examining roughly 9,000 death sentences handed down nationwide, found troubling patterns in California stretching back half a century — many of the same issues Newsom himself has publicly criticized. Compared with other states, California courts have overturned or reduced far fewer death sentences. Black and Latino defendants are disproportionately represented on death row, and prosecutorial decisions by individual district attorneys — rather than the severity of the crime itself — appear to play an outsized role in who receives a death sentence.

Before taking office, Newsom told CalMatters he had asked then-Gov. Jerry Brown to “solve” the death penalty issue. Brown never did, and now the same unresolved dilemma has landed on Newsom’s desk as his time in Sacramento winds down.

A Troubled System’s Deep Roots

No California governor has granted clemency to someone on death row since Ronald Reagan did so in 1967. After the U.S. Supreme Court forced states nationwide to overhaul their capital punishment laws in the 1970s, California reinstated the death penalty in 1977. In the decades since, state prosecutors have sent more than 1,000 people to death row, yet only 13 executions have actually been carried out — the last in 2006.

The disconnect stems largely from California’s political geography. Conservative-leaning counties elect district attorneys who aggressively pursue capital cases, while the power to authorize executions rests with governors elected by a far more liberal statewide electorate. Even with legal challenges piling up and Newsom’s moratorium in place, more than 200 death sentences have been issued in California since executions last occurred nearly two decades ago.

Voters have twice rejected ballot measures to abolish the death penalty outright, in 2012 and 2016. A separate 2016 measure aimed at speeding up executions by streamlining appeals failed to provide adequate funding for defense attorneys, worsening an already massive backlog. The result is a system that satisfies almost no one: California spends roughly $200 million annually on capital case litigation, according to a 2025 report from the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, even though most death row inmates are still waiting to be assigned an attorney. Fully staffing every capital case with legal representation could cost more than half a billion dollars.

Because so few sentences are ever carried out or overturned, California’s share of the nation’s death row population has swelled dramatically over the decades — the state now holds more death sentences than any other in the country.

Racial Disparities and Riverside County’s Outsized Role

Newsom has long pointed to racial bias as one of his central objections to capital punishment. In 2022, he signed legislation making it easier for inmates to challenge sentences tainted by racial discrimination. He has previously stated that “California’s capital punishment scheme is now, and always has been, infected by racism.”

That claim gained further weight through a sweeping investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, which examined capital cases dating to the 1980s and found that prosecutors had systematically excluded Black and Jewish jurors believed to oppose the death penalty. Twenty defendants from those cases have since been resentenced, and at least two are now pursuing multimillion-dollar civil lawsuits.

Separately, a coalition of civil rights organizations has sued the state, arguing that racial disparities in capital sentencing violate the California Constitution. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court directed a Sacramento trial court to review the claims, which cite research showing Black defendants are up to 8.7 times more likely than others to receive a death sentence for similar crimes, and Latino defendants up to 6.2 times more likely.

Geography plays an equally significant role. A Marshall Project and CalMatters analysis of homicide data since 1987 found that someone who commits a homicide in Riverside County is four times more likely to be sentenced to death than someone who commits a similar crime in neighboring Los Angeles County.

Since Newsom’s 2019 moratorium, at least 25 new death sentences have been handed down statewide — 11 of them in Riverside County alone. District attorneys remain free to pursue capital cases unless voters vote to repeal the death penalty altogether.

Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but he has previously defended local prosecutorial discretion. “Criminal justice policy should as much as possible reflect the community, because it’s a personal thing,” he told The Sacramento Bee in 2016. Hestrin, a Republican, has also criticized Newsom’s moratorium as an action that “subverted the express will of the people” and reopened wounds for victims’ families.

A Political Minefield

Hestrin’s pushback offers a glimpse of the backlash Newsom could face if he moves to commute large numbers of death sentences — particularly as he eyes a national political future. Some cases could become powerful ammunition for critics, including that of Richard Allen Davis, convicted of murdering 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993. Klaas’ father, Marc, has been an outspoken opponent of Newsom’s death penalty moratorium.

“He does, I think, have to consider how it would look in other parts of the country were he to grant clemency,” said Garry South, a veteran California political strategist who worked on Newsom’s first gubernatorial campaign in 2008. “He doesn’t want to create an issue, even a phony issue, where his opponents leading up to 2028 could demagogue in the rest of the country and claim he let killers out on the streets of his own home state.” It’s worth noting that commutation would not release anyone from prison — those affected would instead serve life sentences without the possibility of parole.

At the same time, Newsom could face pressure to grant relief to inmates whose innocence claims have drawn national attention, such as Kevin Cooper, sentenced to death for a 1983 quadruple homicide in Chino Hills. High-profile figures including Kim Kardashian and columnist Nicholas Kristof have championed Cooper’s claims that he was framed by San Bernardino County investigators — allegations local law enforcement has repeatedly denied. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing in the case, but the results did not conclusively resolve the matter, and a subsequent outside review reaffirming Cooper’s guilt has itself drawn criticism over its objectivity.

Legal experts say Newsom likely lacks the time to review each of the roughly 560 cases individually, meaning any clemency decision would probably apply broadly rather than case by case — a stark contrast to Biden’s more selective approach.

Some death penalty opponents argue that a sweeping commutation could actually boost Newsom’s standing in a competitive Democratic presidential primary. “The voters he needs to appeal to for a Democratic primary would see this as a bold, positive move, and they want people to act based on their values, who don’t seem like politicians,” said Natasha Minsker, a former ACLU attorney who now lobbies against capital punishment in California.

Should Newsom decline to act, the decision would fall to his successor. Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra, who supported the death penalty during his time as state attorney general, has indicated he would continue the moratorium if elected governor. His Republican opponent, Steve Hilton, has said he would lift the moratorium despite personally opposing capital punishment — leaving the future of executions in California very much uncertain.

Whatever Newsom decides, hundreds of death penalty cases will likely remain unresolved, leaving both supporters and opponents of capital punishment dissatisfied with a system that, for now, shows no clear path forward.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Holds a Quarter of the Nation’s Death Row Cases. Could Newsom Commute Them All? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

This isn’t a statistical fluke. It reflects a long-standing pattern of racial disparity embedded in how California applies its harshest punishment — one that advocates argue courts can no longer afford to sidestep.

Two years ago, the Office of the State Public Defender, along with several civil rights groups, took an unusual legal path: filing what functions as a civil rights lawsuit directly with the California Supreme Court. The move came after decades in which lower courts repeatedly failed to meaningfully engage with claims of racial bias in capital sentencing.

The petition leans on more than a dozen empirical studies, arguing that the way California carries out capital punishment runs afoul of equal protection guarantees written into the state Constitution. In May, the state Supreme Court agreed the case had merit enough to proceed, sending it to Sacramento Superior Court for further review.

The research cited spans four decades and paints a troubling picture. Black defendants are up to eight times more likely, and Latino defendants up to six times more likely, to be sentenced to death compared with other defendants. Cases involving white victims are also more likely to end in a death sentence than those involving Black or Latino victims.

That bias doesn’t just shape outcomes — it raises the stakes for wrongful convictions. Since 1981, eight people have been exonerated and released from California’s death row. All eight were men of color.

Concerns over this kind of bias were central to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to halt executions in the state. His 2019 executive order establishing the moratorium specifically noted that death sentences have been “unevenly and unfairly applied to people of color.” The data since then hasn’t offered much reassurance: Of the 29 people sentenced to death since the moratorium began, 25 are people of color.

A governor’s moratorium, however, is not permanent — a future administration could reverse it at any time. That’s part of why advocates say a definitive court ruling is essential. Only the courts can settle whether the deep racial disparities baked into the state’s capital punishment system make it unconstitutional.

For years, defendants and their attorneys tried to get courts to seriously examine these disparities, only to be met with procedural gridlock. Troy Ashmus’ case illustrates the problem. Sentenced to death in 1986, Ashmus filed a federal habeas petition in 1998 challenging California’s death penalty system under the Eighth Amendment, backed by substantial evidence of racial bias.

What followed were more than two decades of delays. It wasn’t until 2020 — 22 years after he first raised the issue — that Ashmus finally appeared before a superior court judge. But before a ruling could be issued, he died of COVID-19, and his case was dismissed without ever being decided.

Even Ashmus’ case, frustrating as it was, represented a best-case scenario in some ways: he at least had legal representation and resources behind his appeal. That’s not the norm. Of the roughly 550 people currently on California’s death row, about 70% lack an attorney or the funding needed to pursue appeals or petitions. Even when a defendant manages to raise state constitutional claims, getting the California Supreme Court to weigh in can take more than a decade.

Part of the holdup stems from a shrinking, aging pool of attorneys qualified to handle capital appeals, compounded by chronic underfunding of the system. It can take years just to get appellate counsel appointed. Meanwhile, more than 130 fully briefed capital appeals are already sitting before the state Supreme Court, with dozens more working their way through earlier stages — a backlog that all but guarantees years of additional delay.

The financial toll has been staggering as well. Since 1978, California has spent roughly $6 billion maintaining its death penalty system, while carrying out only 13 executions. The most recent one took place on Jan. 17, 2006 — nearly two decades ago.

Given all of this, the constitutional questions raised in the pending civil rights petition demand timely answers, not another decade of delay. Every year the case remains unresolved, the evidence of racial disparity in California’s death penalty system continues to grow — and so does the human cost of waiting.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California’s Courts Must Confront Racial Bias in Death Penalty Sentencing appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The unanimous decision marks the first time the state’s high court has reversed a death sentence under the 2020 law, which allows defendants and prisoners to challenge convictions or sentences if racial bias played a role in their case.

Anthony Bankston, a Bloods gang member, represented himself at trial more than three decades ago. A jury convicted him in connection with separate shootings, including the killing of Benson Jones and the attempted murder of Jones’ brother, Benjamin. Bankston was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

During the penalty phase, a Los Angeles prosecutor told jurors a story about a journalist who viewed a Bengal tiger in a zoo but was told by a hunter that he had not seen the animal in its true state. The prosecutor described the tiger in the wild with its claws, fangs and growl, using the story to argue that Bankston, dressed in a suit and tie in court, was not the same person he was on the street. The prosecutor called him “a killing machine.”

The Supreme Court concluded that the analogy carried an unacceptable risk of racial bias and could have influenced the jury’s decision to impose a death sentence. Bankston’s murder convictions remain in place, but the case will return to a trial court for resentencing.

Justice Leondra Kruger, writing for the court, said the Bengal tiger story has appeared in multiple criminal cases over the years and should no longer be used in California courtrooms. While the court did not say every animal comparison violates the Racial Justice Act, it found that this particular example falls within concerns the Legislature identified when it passed the law.

The Racial Justice Act specifically addresses language and imagery that can dehumanize defendants or appeal to racial stereotypes, including some animal comparisons. The law was enacted after years of debate over racial disparities in policing, prosecution and sentencing.

The court noted that ordinary expressions involving animals, such as “quiet as a mouse” or “free as a bird,” would not necessarily amount to violations. But the justices said prosecutors may not rely on imagery that risks invoking racial prejudice, particularly in a capital case where jurors are deciding whether a person should live or die.

The ruling was one of four decisions issued this week by the California Supreme Court involving claims brought under the Racial Justice Act.

In two other cases, the court upheld death sentences for Alex Demolle, who was convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl, and Marcos Esquivel Barrera, who was sentenced to death for murdering two of his children. In a fourth case involving two condemned prisoners of Southeast Asian descent, the court modified earlier rulings, though not on the basis of their Racial Justice Act claims.

A spokesperson for the Judicial Council of California confirmed that Bankston’s case is the first in which the state Supreme Court has reversed a death sentence because of violations of the Racial Justice Act.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Supreme Court Overturns Death Sentence for First Time Under Racial Justice Law appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Alexis Daniel Rosas of Indio, 29, was previously convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder, along with the two special circumstance allegations and sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations for the 2019 slaying of Makayla Jean Massey, also known as Anita Garcia, of Victorville.

John Hall of the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office confirmed the terms of the sentence to City News Service.

Rosas’ girlfriend, 32-year-old Maury Duarte, was convicted in June of first-degree murder and special circumstance allegations of killing a witness to a crime and lying in wait, as well as being an accessory to a felony. She was sentenced in August to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The jury recommended capital punishment for Rosas following a penalty trial for him alone.

Prosecutors did not seek a death sentence for Duarte. During an August hearing at the Larson Justice Center in Indio, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Gerard imposed the sentence required by law for her.

Rosas was previously being without bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.

According to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney’s Office, Massey’s boyfriend, identified only as “Abram,” had been at odds with Rosas, a documented member of an Indio street gang, bearing the moniker “Trigger,” for some time. The conflict had resulted in the defendant harassing and attacking the victim on multiple occasions.

On June 24, 2019, the feud led to Rosas going to the abandoned house in the 45-400 block of Oasis Street where Abram and Massey were residing and shooting him in the chest — an act which the victim witnessed and detailed to Indio police immediately afterward, prosecutors said.

Abram was hospitalized but ultimately recovered from the wound.

After the shooting, Massey checked into a Motel 6 in Indio for her own safety, but Rosas learned of her whereabouts and that she had made contact with police, prompting him to plan her murder.

He enlisted Duarte’s assistance, and they used her 2005 Toyota Camry for transport. In the pre-dawn hours of June 25, 2019, Rosas went to the victim’s motel room and persuaded her to come out, then physically restrained her inside the Toyota, which Duarte drove to a vacated ranch in the 82-600 block of Avenue 53 in Thermal, according to court papers.

Once at the location, Rosas shoved the victim out of the car and ordered her to start walking toward a gate.

“The defendant kicked her in the stomach, causing her to fall to the ground,” the brief said. “Rosas then shot Makayla five times. One shot was to her head. He knew he had killed her after the second shot, but he continued to shoot bullets into her body.”

He left the victim where she was slain, and he and Duarte headed back toward Indio, dumping the .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol that he’d used to kill Massey on a roadside.

Massey’s remains were discovered within a couple of days, leading to a sheriff’s investigation that pointed to Rosas as the murderer.

The defendants were arrested without incident on Avenue 42 in Indio on June 30, 2019.

Court papers claimed both Rosas and Duarte had conspired in retail fraud, but neither had documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.

California currently has a moratorium in place on executions, ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019. The last execution in the state occurred in 2006.

The post Death Sentence Handed Down In Coachella Valley Murder appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The 16-year-old’s tied-up nude body was found inside a horse trailer parked on a remote ranch in the Ribidoux area. The teen had been shot in the head and there was evidence of rape and torture at the property, investigators said.

Within days of finding the teen, Michael Forrest Thornton, 45, and Janeen Marie Snyder, 21, both of Rialto, were charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances in the brutal slaying.

Separate juries convicted the pair of murder and determined the couple was eligible for the death penalty for kidnapping and torture.

On Tuesday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Thornton was dead at age 68.

“At 8:35 p.m. [Monday], Thornton was pronounced deceased by a registered nurse in the hospice unit who determined the initial cause of death to be natural,” CDCR announced.

Records show Thornton died at the prison system’s California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

A quiet death — unlike his victim’s.

Thornton and Snyder held Curran captive for 14 days, giving her drugs, intimidating her with firearms and sexually exploiting her, Judge Paul Zellerbach said during sentencing.

Curran’s death marked one in what authorities believed to be a long string of attacks on young girls. Zellerbach said Thornton used Snyder to lure teens to him so he could participate in sexual sadism.

Snyder met Thornton, the owner of a chain of Southern California hair salons, as a runaway when she was 13 or 14 years old and he was in his 30s, Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Mike Rushton said at the time of the trials.

“She eventually became his lover,” he said.

Snyder had been working as a part-time stripper in the Las Vegas area at the time of Curran’s disappearance, according to media reports.

Investigators found Curran was taken from her hometown to California by the killers. Her last moments were especially brutal, according to media reports. She was tied to rafters by her hands and feet and violated.

“It was Miss Snyder who ultimately approached Miss Curran in this very vulnerable position, put the gun to her forehead and pulled the trigger,” Zellerbach said.

Snyder, now 45, is housed at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. She is ineligible for parole due to her condemned sentence.

Loved ones tearfully testified Curran was killed before she got her driver’s license, before she ever attended a prom, before she graduated from high school. The Dalmation-loving teen was the would-be maid of honor at her only sister’s wedding. A young life cut short at the hands of two people who outlived her by decades.

The post Girl’s Sadistic Inland Empire Murderer Dies Quietly In Prison appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California prosecutors said Tuesday that they won’t again seek the death penalty against Scott Peterson in the 2002 slaying of his pregnant wife even if he is granted a new trial based on juror misconduct.

But even that declaration wasn’t enough to entirely take a death sentence off the table, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo said.

“Laws change, district attorneys change,” she said. “I want to make sure that we do this right.”

Massullo is considering when to resentence Peterson to life without parole after Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager said in a court filing Friday that she would not seek to retry the death penalty portion of the case after it was overturned by the state Supreme Court in August.

“From the legal point of view — I hate using this term — it’s a done deal,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Dave Harris told the judge during what was otherwise an unresolved procedural hearing over who will represent Peterson. “He’s no longer eligible to be housed on death row. He’s not going to be subjected to the death penalty.”

As a legal matter, “it would be a violation for us to ‘up’ that punishment” once Peterson is re-sentenced to life in prison, Harris said. “That can’t be changed once it’s relied upon by the other side.”

But Massullo is also considering if Peterson should get an entire new trial because of juror misconduct.

One of Peterson’s defense attorneys, Pat Harris, said that from his legal research it appears prosecutors could again seek the death penalty if they have to retry the entire case, because a new trial “would send it right back to square one.”

The judge said she expects to decide the new trial issue this year, and she put off a decision whether to resentence Peterson before she makes that decision. She set another hearing for June 18.

Massullo is considering whether Peterson merits a new trial because a juror failed to disclose that she had sought a restraining order against her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend in 2000.

The juror said in seeking the order that she feared for her unborn child. Massullo must decide if that amounted to juror misconduct, and if so, whether it was so prejudicial that a new trial is warranted.

With Fladager’s announcement Friday, Peterson will be sentenced to life imprisonment if no new trial is granted.

Peterson, 48, appeared at the hearing through a video link from San Quentin State Prison, home of the state’s death row,. But he offered no verbal response to the district attorney’s decision and ensuing legal discussion. California hasn’t executed anyone since 2006, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed a moratorium on executions so long as he is governor.

Laci Peterson, 27, was eight months pregnant with their unborn son, Connor, when she was killed. Investigators said that on Christmas Eve 2002, Peterson took the bodies from their Modesto home and dumped them from his fishing boat into San Francisco Bay, where they surfaced months later.

Peterson was convicted in 2005 in San Mateo County after his trial was moved from Stanislaus County because of worldwide pre-trial publicity.

The state Supreme Court overturned Peterson’s death sentence because potential jurors were improperly dismissed after saying they personally disagreed with the death penalty but would be willing to follow the law and impose it. But the justices said there was considerable circumstantial evidence incriminating him.

Pat Harris said he can now show that there was a nearby burglary on the day Laci Peterson disappeared, supporting the defense’s claim that she was killed when she stumbled upon the crime.

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