![[Skip the following navigation links]](http://www.santacruzpl.org/graphics/tops/skip.gif){kind=small}
![[ Ready Reference Files Home Page ]](http://www.santacruzpl.org/graphics/tops/topreadyref.gif){kind=small}
![[ Website Search Form ]](http://www.santacruzpl.org/graphics/tops/photosearch.gif){kind=small}
![[ Santa Cruz Public Libraries Home Page ]](http://www.santacruzpl.org/graphics/tops/photohome.gif){kind=small}
1851: Legislation authorizes executions under Criminal Practices Act
1872: Capital punishment is authorized in the California Penal Code.
1891: California Law is amended allowing for executions to take place inside state prisons only. Previous executions were conducted by county sheriffs.
March 1893: Jose Gabriel is hanged at San Quentin State Prison in the first state-conducted execution. Hangings are carried out at both state prisons, San Quentin and Folsom.
August 1937: Gas Chamber replaces hanging as method of execution.
December 1937: Ninety-second and last hanging at Folsom. All executions now take place at San Quentin. Robert Lee Cannon and Albert Kessel are the first to be executed in the San Quentin gas chamber.
November 1941: Ethel Leta Juanita Spinelli becomes the first woman executed in California.
May 1942: The 215th and last hanging takes place at San Quentin.
August 1962: Elizabeth Ann Duncan becomes the fourth and most recent woman to be executed in California.
April 1967: Aaron Mitchell becomes the 194th person executed in the gas chamber, and the last executed until 1992. Mitchell was executed for killing a Sacramento police officer. The death penalty was carried out 502 times in California, 308 times by hanging and 194 times in the gas chamber.
February 1972: The California Supreme Court, by a vote of 6 to 1, declares the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 107 inmates are taken off death row and resentenced.
November 1972: Voters approve a constitutional amendment restoring death penalty by a 2-to-1 margin.
December 1976: California Supreme Court rules that the death penalty law does not comply with the U.S. Supreme Court guidelines and is therefore unconstitutional.
May 1977: The California Legislature passes a new death penalty law authored by State Senator George Deukmejian.
August 1977: The California Legislature re-enacts the death penalty after overriding Governor Brown's veto.
November 1978: California voters pass the Briggs Initiative, greatly expanding the number of crimes punishable by death. The broader death penalty law replaces the 1977 statute.
November 1986: Chief Justice Rose Bird and two other liberal members of the California Supreme Court are voted out of office primarily for their votes reversing death penalty cases. They are replaced by conservative justices appointed by Governor George Deukmejian.
April 1992: California resumes executions with the execution of Robert Alton Harris.
August 1992: Lethal injection is added as a method of execution. Inmates may now choose between injection and lethal gas.
August 1993: David Mason is executed after he forfeited his appeals.
October 1994: Gas Chamber is ruled cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional. Lethal injection is now the sole method of execution.
February 1996: William Bonin is the first executed by lethal injection.
Source: "Capital Punishment in California",
San Francisco Chronicle, January 17, 1990.
Also: Death Penalty Focus of California. "California's
Death Penalty." (Online). March 1, 1998.
http://members.aol.com/Dpfocus/caldp.htm. (Visited: 6/10/98.)
Verified by:GM, 6/98
Disclaimer:
While the Library has verified the information presented in these files in what it considers to be reliable and authoritative sources, it cannot take responsibility for nor guarantee the accuracy of the information presented.