DA To Review All Pending Death Penalty Cases
The Riverside County District Attorney’s office is now reviewing all death penalty cases. This comes after the newly sworn in D.A. Paul Zellerbach took the oath of office, promising to run the office more efficiently.
After a month and a half in office, Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach is reviewing each pending death penalty case. Before voters elected him, zellerbach worked as a prosecutor and a judge. “I’m going through them one at a time, reviewing them with some of my top staff, we’ve gotten through 10 to 15,” said Zellerbach.
There are more than 40 pending captial cases in Riverside County which clog the court system and costs taxpayers millions of dollars.
During a sitdown one-on-one interview Zellerbach said, “I don’t understand why Riverside County has this many capital cases, more than L.A. County. It’s not like we live on devils island.” Zellerbach wouldn’t talk about specific cases, but so far he’s already changed the filings on at aleast one case.
In much larger L.A. County, with a population of 9.8 million, there are only 33 capital cases. Zellerbach inherited many of the cases from former D.A. Rod Pacheco. Pacheco’s death penalty trials rarely ended in execution penalties. He did get howeer some high profile death penalty verdicts.
The most well-known is Raymond Lee Oyler, the Esparanza arsonist who killed five fire fighters in 2006. In other cases, the jury acquitted the defendant or decided on life in prison.
When it comes to less serious cases, Zellerbach hopes to take a different approach. Many accused Pacheco of micro-managing cases and overcharging defendants. Zellerbach hopes to change that.
“They’ve gone to college, law school, passed the bar, they are now allowed to make decisions and they’ve gotten their authority back,” said Zellerbach about his deputy D.A.’s.
One example is the Warm Sands sex sting cases where 19 men faced indecent exposure charges, requiring them to register as a sex offender for life. Since zellerbach took office, some have decided to take a plea deal for a lesser charge of disturbing the peace.
Roger Tansey is an attorney for 6 of the defendants in the Warm Sands cases. He said, “I’ve started seeing in other areas reasonable solutions, I asked her why and she said, ‘I’m not afraid anymore’.”
Just weeks ago, 20-year-old Travis Jonsrud of Desert Hot Springs pleaded guilty to resisting arrest in exchange for the dismissal of three charges of assault on a police officer. “Every prosecutor should be tough on crime but it’s my ethical obligation to be fair. Take into account age is one of the factors of the law makes us take it into account.”
On March 1st Zellerbach will go before the Riverside County Supervisors to share with them the state of the district attorneys office.
[Notes:STANDUP CLOSE] after his 100th day in office, zellerbach will give a state of the district attorney’s office before the county supervisors. he’ll detail the past spending by pacheco and give a detailed report of future plans for his office. mike daniels, news channel 3 hd, indio.
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