George last year proposed that some death penalty reviews that automatically go to the state high court -- and account for at least a quarter of its workload -- be handled by California courts of appeal. But that would require a constitutional amendment by legislative action or voter initiative, neither of which has happened.
John Van de Kamp, a former Los Angeles County district attorney and state attorney general, chaired the bipartisan California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice that this year drafted recommendations to overhaul capital punishment in the state.
"If you want to have a death penalty and make it work, you're going to have to spend the money," he said. "It now takes 20 to 25 years from judgment to execution -- and growing."
The impasse persists, Van de Kamp said, because the predominantly conservative advocates of the death penalty don't want to spend the extra $100 million a year needed to fairly administer the appeals process, while opponents of capital punishment are content with the glacial pace of executions.
The last person executed in California was Clarence Allen in January 2006, and executions have been officially halted since December 2006, when U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose ruled that the state's lethal injection practices violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The state had called off the execution of San Quentin inmate Michael Morales 10 months earlier after questions were raised about whether some of those executed by the three-drug formula had been fully anesthetized by the first injection before receiving a paralyzing agent and finally a dose of potassium chloride that stops the heart.
A task force convened by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has since reviewed and rewritten the state's lethal injection protocols, but Fogel has delayed ruling on them until the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco decides a procedural challenge.
A Marin County judge last year concluded that the new protocols break state law because they were drafted without public comment or review by an independent state agency. The appellate court ruling is expected before the end of the year but could then be appealed to the state Supreme Court, said Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Dane R. Gillette.
Iberri would be pleased with Schwarzenegger's view on when executions could resume if the courts approve the new protocols: "Yesterday," he said Friday. "Immediately we would start."
