The state Supreme Court is located in the Earl Warren Building in San Francisco.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
The prosecutor in a Los Angeles murder case compared the Black defendant to a tiger in the jungle with menacing claws and fangs. In a gang-related murder case in Oakland, the prosecutor called the Black defendant “the wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
In contrasting decisions, the California Supreme Court said the tiger language was an appeal to racial prejudice that was grounds for overruling the defendant’s death sentence, but “wolf in sheep’s clothing” was a common expression that did not call attention to anyone’s race.
The two cases were among four appeals ruled upon by the court this week that focused on the Racial Justice Act, a first-in-the-nation state law that took effect in 2021 and invalidated criminal convictions or sentences in which any participant — lawyers for either side, the judge, jurors or an expert witness — showed racial bias or used discriminatory language, even unintentionally.
Article continues below this ad
In the Los Angeles case, the court ruled that the language used by the prosecutor in the trial of Anthony Bankston was indeed racist language.
“The prosecutor’s comments were not only unfairly demeaning; they also improperly discouraged the jury from according Bankston the full measure of individual worth and mercy that the law allows,” Justice Leondra Kruger wrote in a unanimous decision Monday overturning Bankston’s death sentence for a slaying in 1991.
San Francisco Chronicle Logo
Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.
Add Preferred Source
But the court upheld three other death sentences in separate rulings Monday, including the Oakland case in which the prosecutor described Alex Demolle as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” who had raped and murdered an 11-year-old girl.
While six of the court’s seven members were appointed by Democratic governors, the justices uphold most of the death sentences they consider. California has not executed any prisoners since 2006, however, and Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions after taking office in 2019.
Article continues below this ad
Neil Sawhney, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who filed arguments for the defense in the cases, expressed dismay Tuesday at the court’s overall view of the law.
“We’re disappointed that, in its first major decisions about the Racial Justice Act, the California Supreme Court interpreted the law extremely narrowly, contrary to the Legislature’s goal of eradicating racial bias in the criminal justice system — and in the death penalty in particular,” Sawhney said.
Bankston was convicted of fatally shooting Benson Jones, member of a rival gang, on a Los Angeles street corner in May 1991. In arguments to the jury, the prosecutor asked jurors to imagine someone who visits a jungle in India, finds a Bengal tiger and “sees the claws out, he sees the fangs … he hears the growl.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, you sit in judgment in this case on the real Anthony Bankston, the man who kills without remorse,” the prosecutor said.
Kruger, in her 7-0 decision, noted that Attorney General Rob Bonta, who represented the prosecution before the court although he personally opposes the death penalty, had found a “reasonable possibility” that the prosecutor’s comments had affected the jury‘s sentencing decision. The court said the district attorney’s office could decide whether to seek another death sentence at Bankston’s retrial.
Article continues below this ad
Demolle was convicted of raping and murdering Jaquita Mack, 11, whose strangled body was found on a hillside in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood in July 1999. Demolle, who had no serious criminal record, confessed to the slaying.
In arguments to the jurors during the sentencing phase of the case, the prosecutor said Demolle was “the wolf in sheep’s clothing” and “Jaquita is the wounded lamb. She’s out looking for some escape here and he’s … inviting … come on in. … And he shuts the door and the sheep’s clothing comes off and he is a wolf.” The jury deliberated five days before agreeing on a death sentence.
In a 5-2 ruling upholding the verdict, Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero said the wolf comparison, in this context, was not an appeal to racism.
“‘Wolf in sheep’s clothing’ is a common, facially neutral saying that has long been used in myriad circumstances in which someone or something poses or has been presented as something it is not,” Guerrero wrote. The defense, she said, “has not demonstrated how the term wolf is historically associated with racism,” or how the prosecutor’s language could have influenced the jury’s verdict.
Guerrero was joined by Kruger and Justices Carol Corrigan, Joshua Groban and Martin Jenkins. In dissent, Justices Kelli Evans and Goodwin Liu voted to overturn Demolle’s death sentence.
Article continues below this ad
“Given the history of dehumanizing comparisons of Black men to animals in the criminal justice system, this constituted an appeal to racial bias,” said Evans, who, like Guerrero, was appointed by Newsom.
The court voted 6-1 to uphold the death sentence of Marcos Barrera, convicted of torturing and murdering his 5-year-old son Ernesto and 2-year-old daughter Guadalupe in the Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1998. The prosecutor compared Barrera to an animal, but Kruger, in the majority opinion, said those comments “were made only briefly and in passing” and would not have affected the verdict.
Evans, in dissent, said the prosecutor made her comments “in the most dehumanizing manner possible, declaring, ‘I would like to say that he’s an animal, but I would not insult animals. And for sure he’s not a human because I don’t want to belong to the same species he does. What is he? He’s evil. Evil in the shape of a man.’”
In the fourth case, the justices voted 4-3 to uphold the death sentences of Run Peter Chhuon and Samreth Sam Pan for the murders of Nghiep Tjich Le in Sacramento and Hung Dieu Le in Pomona (Los Angeles County) in July and August 1995.
The disputed issue was whether the prosecution appealed to ethnic or religious prejudice, also prohibited by the Racial Justice Act. The prosecutor told the jury that Chhuon had failed to behave as a good Cambodian or Buddhist should, and that the Buddhist religion, in the words of a defense witness, was supposed to include “a reverence for all life.”
Article continues below this ad
Groban, in the majority opinion, said the prosecutor was simply describing defense testimony at trial and was not appealing to prejudice. Jenkins, joined in dissent by Liu and Evans, said the prosecution was actually arguing that “Chhuon’s conduct betrayed his Cambodian identity and the tenets of Buddhism taught to him by his father,” an argument that appealed to prejudice and violated state law.
The cases are People v. Bankston, S074439; People v. Demolle, S159120; People v. Barrera, S103358; and People v. Chhuon and Pan, S105403.