Judge considers reversing death sentence against murderer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A California judge will consider Friday whether to overturn the death sentence of Richard Allen Davis, who killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993 after abducting her from her bedroom at knifepoint. The crime shocked the nation.

Jurors found Davis guilty in 1996 of first-degree murder and “special circumstances” charges of kidnapping, burglary, robbery and attempted sexual conduct on a child. Davis, who had a long history of kidnapping and assault dating back to the 1970s, was sentenced to death.

Davis’ lawyers argued in a February court filing that his death sentence should be overturned because of recent changes to California’s criminal law. They also pointed to California’s current moratorium on the death penalty. In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions, calling the death penalty “a failure” that discriminates against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or who cannot afford expensive legal representation.” A future governor could change that policy.

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said Davis’s lawyers’ arguments were “nonsensical” and that the laws they cited did not apply to Davis’s death sentence for Klaas’s murder.

Davis kidnapped Klaas from her bedroom in Petaluma, 40 miles north of San Francisco, in October 1993 and strangled her. That night, she and two friends were having a slumber party and her mother was sleeping in a nearby room. Klaas’ disappearance sparked 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 a major reason for the passage of the so-called “Three Strikes” law in California in 1994, which provides for longer prison sentences for repeat offenders. Legislators and voters approved the proposal.

No one has been executed in California since 2006, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor. And although voters narrowly approved a referendum in 2016 to bring forward the execution of the sentence, no convicted inmate has faced immediate execution.

Since the last execution in California, the number of people on death row has risen to one in four prisoners sentenced to death in the United States.