SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A California judge will consider Friday whether to overturn the death sentence against Richard Allen Davis, who in 1993 killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas after kidnapping her from her bedroom at knifepoint. in a crime that shocked the nation.
Jurors in 1996 found Davis guilty of first-degree murder and the “special circumstances” of kidnapping, robbery, robbery and attempted lewd acts on a child. Davis, who had an extensive history of kidnappings and assaults dating back to the 1970s, was sentenced to death.
Davis’ attorneys argued in a February court filing that his death sentence should be overturned due to recent changes to California’s sentencing laws. They also noted California’s current moratorium on the death penalty. In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on executions, calling the death penalty “a failure” that discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or who cannot afford expensive legal representation.” A future governor could change this policy.
The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said Davis’ lawyers’ arguments are “absurd” and that the laws they cite do not apply to Davis’ death sentence for Klaas’ murder.
Davis kidnapped Klaas from her bedroom in Petaluma, 40 miles north of San Francisco, in October 1993 and strangled her to death. That night, she and two friends had a slumber party and her mother slept in a nearby room. Klaas’ disappearance triggered a nationwide search by thousands of volunteers. Davis was arrested two months later and led police to the child’s body, which was found in a shallow grave 50 miles north of her home in Sonoma County.
The case was one of the main drivers behind California’s passage of the so-called “three strikes” law in 1994, which established longer sentences for repeat offenders. Parliamentarians and voters approved the proposal.
California has not executed anyone since 2006, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. And although voters in 2016 narrowly approved a ballot measure to speed up punishment, no convicted inmate faced imminent execution.
Since the last execution in California, the death row population has grown to house one in four condemned inmates in the United States.
