SAN QUENTIN — A lawsuit that sought to resume executions in California has fizzled six years after it was filed, in light of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2019 order to halt the death penalty, court records show.
In an order late last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals officially ended a lawsuit filed in 2015 by Bradley Winchell and ex-NFL player Kermit Alexander, which attempted to compel the state to resume executing the more than 700 people on death row at the time. But the plaintiffs had no path to victory after Newsom’s order and agreed to a stipulated dismissal, the 9th Circuit decision says.
Both Winchell and Alexander, who played in the NFL from 1963-73 for the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles, were family members of victims of shocking, high-profile murders.
In August 1984, Alexander’s mother, sister, and two nephews, aged 8 and 13, were murdered by members of the Rollin 60’s Neighborhood Crips in a home invasion in Los Angeles. Alexander later gave public interviews detailing how he went on a “manhunt” for the killers until the city’s mayor called him off.
Alexander sought the execution of Tiequon Cox, a high-ranking gang member convicted in the quadruple murder who also stabbed Crips co-found Stanley “Tookie” Williams in the neck in a 1989 attempted murder at San Quentin. Winchell, whose 17-year-old daughter was tortured and murdered by Michael Morales in a murder-for-hire over a love triangle, sought Morales’ execution.
Cox, 55, has been on Death Row since 1986. Morales, 61, has been on Death Row since 1983. California currently has 697 condemned inmates.
Last month, the 9th Circuit also denied a similar lawsuit by California district attorneys.
For the past 15 years, California’s death penalty has existed in name only. The most recent execution of 76-year-old triple murderer Clarence Ray Allen occurred in 2006. Two years earlier, the state’s most controversial execution of Williams — after he disavowed the Crips and spent years discouraging youngsters from crime — helped garner public support against the death penalty.
In recent years, California has seen a sea change of more progressive District Attorneys taking office and vocally opposing the death penalty, including in major metropolitan counties like San Francisco and Los Angeles. When he officially halted executions two years ago, Newsom put out a public statement calling the death penalty system a failure “by any measure.”
“It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars,” Newsom said. “But most of all, the death penalty is absolute, irreversible and irreparable in the event of a human error.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com