Human Rights Watch asks Governor Schwarzenegger to carefully consider the specific concerns surrounding reports of Mr. Beardslee mental impairment as well as California’s death penalty system more generally, including the commission created by the California State Senate to study the administration of criminal justice in California.
January 14, 2005
The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor of California
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:
We are writing to urge you to grant clemency to Donald Beardslee. Mr. Beardslee was sentenced to death for the 1981 murders of Patty Geddling and Stacy Benjamin. His execution is scheduled for January 19, 2005.
We ask that you carefully consider the specific concerns surrounding Mr. Beardslee’s case as well as California’s death penalty system more generally, including the commission created by the California State Senate to study the administration of criminal justice in your state.
We are very concerned by reports that Mr. Beardslee has suffered from brain damage since birth that was aggravated by two serious accidents later in his life. A psychiatrist from the University of Pennsylvania who recently assessed Mr. Beardslee has reported that the right hemisphere of Mr. Beardslee’s brain is “virtually non-functioning,” which may have lead to impaired judgment, paranoia, and emotional disconnect.
The jury that sentenced Mr. Beardslee did not have any information about his mental impairment, which may have influenced jurors’ perception of his demeanor. There are reports that jurors perceived him to be cold and calculating based on his aloof behavior at trial when, in reality, Mr. Beardslee’s condition does not allow him to express normal emotions.
We hope you will carefully consider reports of Mr. Beardslee’s mental impairment and grant him clemency. International norms and standards reject the idea that the persons suffering from mental disorders should be subject to the death penalty. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted resolutions in 1999 and 2000 that called upon states not to impose the death penalty on “a person suffering from any form of mental disorder.”
As you are aware, the California Commission on Fair Administration of Justice, established by the California State Senate, is currently investigating the fairness and effectiveness of the state’s death penalty system. The commission is also tasked with examining more broadly failures in the criminal justice system to provide safeguards for wrongful convictions.
The work of the commission follows years of worrisome developments regarding California’s death penalty. In 2003, the Santa Clara Law Review exposed numerous flaws in California’s death penalty system. Its work demonstrated that the races of defendants and victims disproportionately affect death sentences in California, and that many death row inmates in the state lack access to qualified counsel to seek review of their convictions and sentences in the courts.
Furthermore, it is well known that that six people who have been sentenced to death in California have been exonerated on grounds of innocence or had their convictions overturned. If your state moves forward with executions in the face of these persistent problems, it will undermine justice and erode public confidence in the fundamental fairness of the criminal justice system in California.
Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances. The death penalty is a form of punishment unique in its cruelty and is inevitably carried out in an arbitrary manner, inflicted primarily on the most vulnerable – the poor, the mentally ill, and persons of color. The intrinsic fallibility of all criminal justice systems assures that even when full due process of law is respected, innocent persons may be executed.
We urge you to grant clemency to Donald Beardslee.
Sincerely,
s/
Emma Cherniavsky
Director, Southern California
s/
Sarah Palermo
Director, Northern California
s/
Wendy Patten
U.S. Advocacy Director
