I-Team: As 15 local inmates sit on death row, DA Hestrin says he’ll defy Gov’s death penalty action

A total of 20 people died in the Coachella Valley at the hands of inmates currently on California’s death row, according to state data analyzed by News Channel 3’s I-Team.

Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said he owes it to the victims and their families to keep pursuing the death penalty in cases that warrant it, despite what Governor Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.

“The governor cannot by fiat, wipe away the laws on the books,” said Hestrin. “So what (Newsom is) suggesting, is that no one is going to be executed.”

Hestrin said changing penalties after sentencing erodes the credibility of the justice system.

“That’s a really bedrock principle of our legal system, is that when a sentence is given, it should be carried out,” he said.

Although Riverside County makes up about six percent of California’s population, Riverside County convicts make up 12 percent of the death row population.

“It’s complex but i think it reflects the fact that we had tough on crime DA’s and a high crime rate,” said Hestrin.

Hestrin says his criteria for making the case for the death penalty might be narrower than it once was.

“Eight years ago as an example, we had 45 pending death penalty cases. We currently have 12,” said Hestrin.

Of the 737 men and women currently sitting on California’s death row, 91 of them committed murders in Riverside County. 15 of those individuals took lives in the Coachella Valley.

Some of the cases date as far back as 1979. James Anderson, has been sitting on death row for more than 40 years for the murder of a woman and her granddaughter in a field near Indio.

“Last year we had five death penalty cases. Every single one of them dealt with a case with more than one murder,” said Hestrin.

13 people were sent to death row on Hestrin’s watch, and he personally prosecuted Raymond Lee Oyler, who convicted of the arson deaths of five firefighters in Idyllwild. Of the 138 people killed in Riverside County by people now on death row, nine of the victims are first responders.

“Start thinking about the people that commit the most heinous crimes, and kill two people, three people. How do you punish that? How do you punish that fairly and justly, and somehow encompass justice for the victims?” asked Hestrin.

Other Republicans echoed Hestrin’s sentiments about the moratorium on execution in California.

“The governor has given reprieve to serial killers such as William Suff, who was found guilty of murdering 12 women and dumping their bodies in fields in western Riverside County between 1989 and 1991,” said Sen. Jeff Stone, R-La Quinta. “Suff was sentenced to death in 1995, and his death
sentence was upheld in 2014 by the California Supreme Court.”