Death Penalty Draws Little Debate During This Political Season : Campaigns: Legal and political climate is so heavily weighted in favor of carrying out execution.

By DOUGLAS P. SHUIT

April 15, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO — So far this election season, the question of capital punishment, which has been a key issue in California for decades, has been left on the back burner of public policy debate, despite the approaching execution date of convicted murderer Robert Alton Harris.

As many observers see it, the legal and political climate in California is so heavily weighted in favor of carrying out the first execution in 25 years, on Tuesday, that there just isn’t enough opposition to make it much of an issue.

“Most of the candidates have embraced it. You have an attorney general who supports and advocates the death penalty. You have a court that is not turning cases over. It’s hard to create a lot of antagonism, among the public, in an environment like that,” said Ken Khachigian, the campaign manager for Bruce Herschenson, one of the Republican candidates seeking the U.S. Senate seat held by Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston.

Each of the Republican and Democratic candidates in the two U.S. Senate races favors the death penalty. Democrats who once opposed capital punishment, such as the two U.S. Senate candidates, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and Rep. Mel Levine, now support it.

Voters, who twice in the past 20 years approved initiatives restoring the death penalty, remain strongly in favor of it. Public opinion surveys of Californians show that 80% or more support capital punishment.

And, for the first time in more than two decades, both the governor and state attorney general are advocates of the death penalty.

Since 1986, when a bitter election led to the ouster of former California Supreme Court Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and two fellow justices, the state’s highest court has not routinely overturned death penalty cases. Bird voted to overturn death penalty verdicts in 61 out of the 61 cases she participated in.

“When Rose Bird and that court were handing down reversals, you were creating a public outrage that got people’s attention about the death penalty. You had an institution out there that was not following the public’s wishes, and I think that kept the issue very focused,” said Khachigian, a political strategist who for years worked for George Deukmejian, who, first as a state senator and then as governor, led the drive for restoration of the death penalty in California.

Two years ago at this time, the issue surfaced in the Democratic primary election for governor. Harris then was just four days away from his scheduled execution when he received a stay.

With Harris on the public’s mind, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the former San Francisco mayor who this year is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Sen. John Seymour, ran television ads showing her being booed by Democratic activists during a speech in which she pointed out her support for the death penalty.

Feinstein’s opponent, former Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, was forced to defend his position opposing capital punishment. Van de Kamp insisted he was making every effort to carry out Harris’ death sentence, and even drew an accusation from Feinstein that he was exploiting the issue because he began holding daily briefing sessions for the media to keep reporters up to date on the then-pending execution.

Feinstein defeated Van de Kamp, then lost to current Gov. Pete Wilson, a supporter of the death penalty.

Van de Kamp said he did not think the death penalty was decisive in his race against Feinstein, though he believes it helped her establish a tough-on-crime image with voters.

“I don’t think the death penalty issue is a winner or loser in elections,” said Van de Kamp, now practicing law in Los Angeles. He pointed to the success that New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, an opponent of the death penalty, has had.

In the 1988 presidential race, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, an opponent of the death penalty, stumbled badly when he was asked during a Los Angeles debate with George Bush how he would react if his wife were raped and murdered.

His response was so unemotional and academic, given the nature of the question, that it was said to have been one of the issues that contributed to his defeat at the hands of Bush. An ABC News exit poll showed that 27% of all voters who voted in the 1988 presidential race said the death penalty was an important issue to them. Bush beat Dukakis 3 to 1 with those voters.

This year, the issue could be revived when two leading Democratic presidential candidates, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and former California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., bring their campaign here for the June primary. Clinton supports the death penalty, while Brown is a longtime opponent.

Observers say that even though little is being said about capital punishment now, the public is still very solidly in favor of the death penalty.

“This is not an issue where public opinion changes a lot. People like the death penalty for murder cases,” said John Brennan, who supervises the Los Angeles Times Poll, which in recent years has shown support for capital punishment to be close to 80% among Californians surveyed.

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, conceded that there is widespread support for the death penalty. But she said a poll sponsored by the ACLU and other organizations in 1989 showed that Californians, by a 2-1 margin, preferred life imprisonment without the possibility of parole if there were guarantees the prisoner would never get out and would work to provide financial restitution to families of their victims.

Some wonder whether the strong support in public opinion surveys will hold up once executions begin again.

Jeff Weir, a spokesman for Seymour, said, “I think it would be a gamble to try and exploit the Harris execution at this point.”

He went on to say: “We haven’t had an execution in California for 25 years. People could get soft on it once it happens. California is not used to executions. There are lot of people 25 years and younger who haven’t been through the cycle. The amount of news media coverage of Harris in the next two weeks will determine how it will play.”

Two years ago, Seymour, who was appointed to Wilson’s seat when the Republican was elected governor in 1990, asked for a front-row seat at Harris’ execution when it appeared the murderer was going to be unable to avoid the gas chamber. Seymour has not renewed his request this year.

H. L. Richardson, an ultraconservative former state senator and one of the most ardent advocates of the death penalty in recent years, said most Californians, when confronted with the possibility of an execution, “have the attitude that, ‘Well, it’s about time.’ It’s an accepted thing. It’s just not a controversial subject anymore. The only argument now is whether you should use gas, electricity, the rope, rifle or lethal injection.”