Decision to seek death penalty deemed unusual
10:00 PM PDT on Saturday, September 6, 2008
By JESSICA LOGAN
The Press-Enterprise
The Riverside County district attorney's decision to pursue the death penalty against a man charged with murder in connection with a recent shooting underscores the wide disparity in how the death penalty is used among different counties in California, legal experts say.
Some experts say the wide discretion prosecutors have from county to county in the state makes the process unfair, while Riverside County district attorney spokeswoman Ingrid Wyatt said these decisions represent the will of the people in the county.
"The death row has many inmates ... from Riverside County so I think the jurors have spoken about how they feel about it in Riverside County," she said.
The Riverside County prosecutor's office acknowledges that it has sent more people to death row than most other counties in the state. Wyatt said she could not address how other counties pursue the death penalty. But she said Riverside County carefully reviews the cases and seeks the death penalty against defendants who high-level prosecutors believe have committed the most heinous crimes.
But some legal experts say seeking the death penalty against a man accused of a single gang shooting is remarkable even for Riverside County because they believe this kind of killing is not among the worst of the worst.
The Riverside County prosecutor's office announced recently that it would pursue the death penalty against Jesse Manzo, who is charged with murder in connection with the May 2 shooting death of Raymond Franklin in the northern part of Riverside. He pleaded not guilty July 23 to all charges. Franklin was not a gang member and was a good influence in the community, a Riverside County district attorney's news release stated.
The Riverside County district attorney stated in the news release it will pursue the death penalty in this case because prosecutors allege the crime was committed to further the East Side Riva gang. Manzo's attorney Addison Steele said in a previous interview that Manzo is not a gang member.
The prosecutor's office does not pursue death against all people charged with the special circumstance of committing a murder to further a street gang.
Christopher Butler, who pleaded not guilty to all charges, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of murder in connection with the death of 15-year-old Allen Anthony White, attempted murder and gang charges in connection with a Feb. 12, 2007, shooting at the corner of John F. Kennedy Drive and Thyme Place in Moreno Valley.
Butler is eligible for the death penalty because prosecutors allege the special circumstance that the murder was committed to further a gang. Still, the prosecutor's office announced it would not seek death.
Wyatt declined to say what other elements of the case led prosecutors to seek the death penalty in the Manzo case.
John Cotsirilos, an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, said the facts of the Manzo case do not make it one of the worst of the worst. "I personally can't imagine any other county proceeding on death in this case."
UC Berkeley School of Law Professor Elisabeth Semel said the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst murders.
She runs the school's death penalty clinic, and said prosecutors can pursue death on almost all first-degree murder cases in California because the laws are so broad. Semel said it is unfair for a person to face the death penalty for a crime in one county and life in prison a mile away in another county. She believes these rules should be uniform across the state.
University of San Francisco School of Law Professor Steven F. Shatz has studied thousands of death penalty cases. He said juries are most likely to vote for death if there have been multiple killings or if the killer inflicted harm to the victim beyond the killing.
"In the 8 ½ years since the gang motive special circumstance was added to the death penalty statute, I would estimate there have been at least 500 gang-related first degree murder convictions, but only one defendant has been sentenced to death solely for a gang motive killing," Shatz wrote in an e-mail.
Reach Jessica Logan at 951-368-9466 or jlogan@PE.com
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