Judge to Reconsider Order for Data in Homicide Cases

SAN FRANCISCO — Responding to protests from prosecutors statewide, a judge has agreed to reconsider an order that would require authorities to provide details on as many as 10,000 homicide cases, it was learned Monday.

Attorneys for Death Row inmate Earl Lloyd Jackson sought the information in an effort to show that the death penalty is being applied in a discriminatory manner.

Bernard Jefferson, a retired Court of Appeal justice appointed by the state Supreme Court to hear Jackson’s appeal, last week ordered Jackson’s lawyers to appear before him Oct. 17 in Los Angeles to explain again why they need the information.

Jefferson’s first order required the attorney general and the Los Angeles County district attorney to comply by early September with the request for the information on homicide cases dating back to August, 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated in California.

Defense Expects Proof

The lawyers believe that details on the cases--including race, sex and age of the victims, plus the outcome of the trials--will prove their contention that death sentences are meted out in a discriminatory fashion and are thus unconstitutional.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Susan Lee Frierson, who described Jefferson’s original order as the most far-reaching ever issued in California, said Monday that she is “very pleased” that the judge is planning to hold a hearing to reconsider.

Studies in other states, most notably in Georgia, have shown that the odds are 4.3 times greater that death will be imposed if the murder victim is white than if the victim is nonwhite. Chances increase if the victim is young and female.

But earlier this month, Jefferson issued a statement to lawyers saying he was reconsidering his order. Frierson had filed a two-inch thick document detailing the expense and time needed to comply. She said the attorney general did not have the information and would have turn to individual counties.

Included in the document were letters from district attorneys statewide maintaining that they could not retrieve the information without spending several weeks. Many said they would not produce the information unless the judge specifically ordered them to comply. The cost of complying in Los Angeles would be $266,000 and would take seven months, officials in Los Angeles estimated.

Although similar discrimination claims have been raised by other Death Row inmates, Jackson’s case is the only one in California in which a judge has ordered an inquiry. Jackson was sentenced to death in 1979 for the murders of two elderly women in Long Beach.

The state Supreme Court affirmed Jackson’s death judgment in 1980. Since then, he has been pursuing other appeals, claiming that his trial lawyer was incompetent, and that he was sentenced to death in part because he is black and his victims were white.

The issue also is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. It is viewed as the defense bar’s major remaining argument that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Eric Multhaup, one of Jackson’s lawyers, said that while the latest order delays the proceedings, it indicates merely that Jefferson is being “careful” by allowing another hearing on the matter.

“It doesn’t change anything at all,” Multhaup said.