When a jury found Richard Allen Davis guilty of the murder of Petaluma's 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1996, Davis puckered his lips and extended a middle finger to TV cameras. Later, Davis was sentenced to death, and outraged California voters passed a three-strikes sentencing law.
From death row now, Davis still is puckering up and extending his finger at the public -- and the public is paying for it. It's 2009, yet it was only this month that Davis' first appeal was argued before the California Supreme Court. 
"Who would think it would take almost as long for this guy to get his hearing after he was sentenced to death than my daughter was on this Earth and she didn't reach her 13th birthday?" Polly's father, Marc Klaas, told me Tuesday.
Expect a ruling on that appeal within 90 days. Then there's a state habeas corpus appeal. Then Davis has a federal habeas corpus appeal. Before it's over, Davis, now 54, probably will have died of boredom. Or from another opium overdose, like the one for which he was treated in 2006, despite the fact that he was inside San Quentin.
How did it take this long? Davis was sentenced to death in September 1996 for the 1993 crime. Then it took the California Supreme Court office that handles appellate attorneys until mid-2001 to appoint attorney Phillip Cherney to represent Davis. As I've reported before, five years is not an unusual hiatus.
Then it took Cherney until July 11, 2005 to file an opening brief. Producing the appeal took longer than the prosecuting of Davis.
After another four years of delay and back and forth with the California attorney general's office, voila, there was a hearing in March.
"I have no issue with the careful consideration of death penalty appeals or that it is an automatic process," said Klaas, and he wants a system that prevents the execution of an innocent man.
Continued... |