Criminal Justice

Gov. George Deukmejian, who wrote the death penalty law under which San Diego murderer Robert Alton Harris was sentenced to the gas chamber, said Wednesday that both he and the public have become frustrated waiting for the resumption of executions in California. He blamed defense attorneys who "always seem to be able to come up with some new approach to delay the implementation of the law."

Seeking to cut the time it takes to bring criminal cases to trial, Orange County's incoming district attorney on Tuesday outlined a sweeping reorganization of the office aimed at moving prosecutors out of administrative jobs and into the courtroom. The announcement comes less than a month before Anthony J.

When they began beating and choking him, Donald Wilson thought he could tough it out. The 28-year-old entertainer, a Los Angeles native, was in Japanese police custody, suspected of drug possession, and as he tells it, he was brutally beaten by the policemen. Later, he shrugged off his pains, figuring they would disappear in a matter of days. They didn't. First came the splitting headaches and nausea, then double vision and numbness on his right side.

The O.J. Simpson story has dominated the nation's news media and the national consciousness in a way unmatched since Charles Lindbergh's baby was kidnaped 63 years ago. H.L. Mencken, the journalist and social critic, called the trial of Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnaping and murder of 20-month-old Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. "the biggest story since the Resurrection."

I don't blame Buena Park police for being disappointed when their prime suspect in the death of model Jasmine Fiore hanged himself in a Canadian motel before they could capture him and try him for murder. "The sadness of this all is that Mr. Jenkins will not stand before an Orange County jury for his crimes," a police lieutenant told reporters, implying that suspected killer Ryan Jenkins cheated the criminal justice system by committing suicide while on the run. But I didn't feel cheated; I felt oddly relieved when Jenkins' body was discovered last month.

Reflecting a 15-year trend, the number of Americans behind bars or on probation or parole climbed to a record 5.1 million last year, according to a Justice Department study released Sunday. A total of 2.7% of the nation's population was either locked up or under legal supervision at the end of 1994, the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics found. Nearly three-quarters of those in the criminal justice system were on probation or parole in the community rather than serving time behind bars.

A black Islamic leader on Saturday urged gang members in the San Fernando Valley to stop killing each other and instead show support for four men charged in the videotaped beating of truck driver Reginald O. Denny. "When I saw Reginald Denny lying on the ground at Florence and Normandie," said Khallid Abdul Muhammad of the Nation of Islam at the Pacoima Community Center, "I didn't feel a . . . thing.

A quarter-century after the slaying of Marsalee Nicholas, a college student from Malibu, voters will consider an initiative launched in her name that would give a stronger voice to crime victims and their families, and impose harsher treatment on convicted killers. Proposition 9 would alter the state Constitution to require that crime victims be notified and consulted on developments in their cases.

The most fundamental duty of any responsible government is public safety. No society can prosper, no business can operate without a basic level of personal security. In too many neighborhoods, however, people are trapped behind locked gates and afraid to open the front door. Middle-class residents of the San Fernando Valley and their children should not have to live like this.

After earlier declaring he was ready to die, Timothy J. McVeigh decided Thursday to seek a postponement of his execution because, according to his lawyers, the convicted Oklahoma City bomber said he wants to "promote integrity in the criminal justice system." McVeigh is scheduled to die in 10 days.