John Roemer reports in today’s Daily Journal [subscription] on yesterday’s reversal of the death sentence in People v. Smith. That decision, the court’s recent rehearing grant in a case where a divided court had upheld a death judgment (People v. Grimes), and the addition of three justices appointed by Governor Jerry Brown, Roemer says, indicate that “the justices appear far less ready to routinely deny appeals, leaving them for federal courts to consider.”
Of course, Governor Brown’s appointees are no more than a partial cause of a new trend, if there is one. Although they did provide three of the four votes for rehearing in Grimes, yesterday’s Smith opinion was unanimous and last summer — before two of the three Brown appointees joined the court — a unanimous court reversed in two other death penalty appeals.
A better indicator of whether the court is entering a “new era” in its death penalty jurisprudence might be how the court deals with Batson/Wheeler issues in People v. Scott, a case in which the court asked for post-argument briefing. There should be an opinion in Scott by June 8.
