Death-penalty dispute

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Campaigning on an anti-capital-punishment platform was an easy call for Kamala Harris when she ran for district attorney in famously liberal San Francisco.

Sticking to that position three months after she got the job has been a lot harder.

After the first slaying of an on-duty police officer here in 10 years, Miss Harris has faced mounting pressure to reverse her decision not to seek the death penalty against the officer’s accused killer.

The San Francisco Police Officers Association called on Miss Harris to recuse herself and her office from the case and to turn it over to California’s attorney general.

The move followed a two-hour meeting Wednesday that the union organized after angry rank-and-file officers started circulating a petition urging Miss Harris to reconsider and planned a march on her office.

“The murder of Officer Isaac Espinoza has taken our members to a new level of frustration, emotion, anger, and I think at this point what we are asking is that the district attorney of San Francisco do her job,” union President Gary Delegnas said, surrounded by about 200 grim-faced officers, those in uniform still wearing black mourning bands over their badges.

Mr. Delegnas said the union had the backing of Police Chief Heather Fong, who refused to comment after the meeting.

The district attorney refused to be swayed.

“I have a responsibility to uphold the law, enforce the law and prosecute crimes and intend to do it in this tragic case,” she said.

Miss Harris, citing her moral opposition to capital punishment as well as what she viewed as the unlikely odds of obtaining a death sentence in San Francisco, announced she would pursue a sentence of life without parole for David Hill, 21, less than three days after Officer Espinoza, 29, was gunned down with an assault rifle on April 10. Mr. Hill has pleaded not guilty.

At the time, it appeared that Miss Harris had the police department’s reluctant backing. Mr. Delegnas stood shoulder to shoulder with her at a news conference and said she had a point about the difficulty of securing a death sentence in San Francisco.

The backlash erupted at Officer Espinoza’s funeral last Friday, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, drew a standing ovation with her statement that a police officer’s death is “the special circumstance called for by the death-penalty law.” Outside the church, Mrs. Feinstein said she never would have endorsed Miss Harris had she known her opposition to the death penalty extended to police officers.

The senator’s candor also prompted Chief Fong and her command staff to issue a memo to the department’s 2,100 officers stating they, too, wanted Miss Harris to change her stand.

The last officer to be killed on duty in San Francisco was James Guelff, who was shot by Vic Lee Boutwell, a carjacker, in November 1994. Police fatally shot Boutwell before he could be arrested.

According to statistics compiled by Miss Harris’ office, only two persons have received death sentences from San Francisco juries during the past 40 years, and neither was charged with killing an officer.