Judge to consider recalling death sentence of man who killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas

[Pelican Press 0]

Judge to consider recalling ****** sentence of man who ******* 12-year-old Polly Klaas

FILE – Richard Allen Davis, left, appears with his public defender, Bruce Kinnison, in a Sonoma County Municipal Court in Santa Rosa, Calif., Dec. 7, 1993. A California judge will consider, on Friday, May 31, 2024, whether to recall the ****** sentence against Davis, who in 1993 ******* 12-year-old Polly Klaas after kidnapping her from her bedroom at knifepoint in a ****** that shocked the nation. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A California judge will consider Friday whether to recall the ****** sentence against Richard Allen Davis, who in 1993 ******* 12-year-old Polly Klaas after kidnapping her from her bedroom at knifepoint in a ****** that shocked the nation.

Jurors in 1996 found Davis guilty of first-degree ******* and of the “special circumstances” of kidnapping, burglary, robbery and attempting a lewd act on a child. Davis, who had an extensive kidnap and ******** record going back to the 1970s, was sentenced to ******.

Davis’ attorneys argued in a February court filing that his ****** sentence should be recalled because of recent changes to California sentencing laws. They also noted California’s current moratorium on the ****** penalty. In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom

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, calling the ****** penalty “a ********” that has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, ****** and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation.” A future governor could change that policy.

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said that Davis’ attorneys’ arguments are “nonsensical” and that the laws they are citing don’t apply to Davis’s ****** sentence for Klaas’ *******.

Davis kidnapped Klaas from her bedroom in Petaluma, 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of San Francisco, in October 1993 and strangled her to ******. That night, she and two friends held a slumber party and her mother slept in a nearby room. Klaas’ disappearance touched off 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 (80 kilometers) north of her home in Sonoma County.

The case was a major driver behind California’s passage of a so-called “three strikes” law in 1994 that set longer sentences for repeat offenders. Lawmakers and voters approved the proposal.

California hasn’t ********* anyone since 2006, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. And though voters in 2016 narrowly approved a ballot measure to speed up the punishment, no condemned inmate faced imminent **********.

Since California’s last **********, its ****** row population has grown to house one of every four condemned inmates in the ******* States.

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Polly Klaas,Richard Allen Davis,****** sentence,Calif,special circumstances,Gavin Newsom
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