Which agency, department, or commission in the State of California is
responsible for deciding on whether to spend extra money to seek the
death penalty in capital punishment trials as opposed to seeking life
in prison without parole?

Hello,

The decision on whether to seek the death penalty belongs to the
county district attorney prosecuting the case:

"State law limits the death penalty to only those murders involving
one of a select list of 21 special circumstances. Each District
Attorney thoroughly reviews the small subset of death-eligible cases,
often after consulting with defense attorneys, before deciding whether
to pursue the death penalty."

Source: California Office of the Attorney General, "California
District Attorneys, Attorney General's Office and Others Release Death
Penalty Study," 19 March 2003:
http://caag.state.ca.us/newsalerts/2003/03-034.htm.

For example, LA County District Attorney Steve Cooley is to decide
whether to seek the death penalty against Juan Manuel Alvarez, who
caused the train derailment that killed several people last month.

Source: CNN, "Man accused in train crash faces murder charges," 27
Jan. 2005, http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:rnbZ1YTM8QcJ:www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/27/train.derailment/+California+district+attorney+death+penalty&hl=en.

I hope this answer meets your needs. If not, please request clarification.

Search strategy:
California district attorney death penalty
://www.google.fr/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2003-34,GGLD:en&q=California+district+attorney+death+penalty

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Request for Answer Clarification by misterg3355-ga on 20 Feb 2005 17:05 PST

Hi there, mwalcoff-ga:

Thanks very much for your response. I would like to get just a little
more clarification. It appears quite clear that the prosecutors in the
respective county DA offices decide whether to pursue the death
penalty. However, in terms of deciding how much money to budget each
year for death penalty cases, I imagine that it would be either the
California Comptroller's Office or the Californis Treasurer who would
have to decide, along with the Attorney General? Do you think that you
could find out? In tracking down that death penalty study that you
included in your answer, I found these names and contact information
in the press release that may help you (us):

Lawrence Brown, California District Attorney's Association
916 443-2017 email: lbrown@cdaa.org

Susan Blake, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
916 446-0345 email: sueblake@cjlf.org

Thanks again.

misterg3355-ga

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Clarification of Answer by mwalcoff-ga on 23 Feb 2005 11:40 PST

Hello,

I wrote to Dave LaBahn, executive director of the California District
Attorneys Association. He said:

1) There are no funds budgeted specifically for the prosecution of
death-penalty cases in California.
2) Finances never come into play when a DA decides whether or not to
file a capital-murder case.
3) The state does have a fund to support smaller counties in the
prosecution of murder cases. However, the fund is not specific to
death-penalty cases.

I hope this clarifies what you need to know.

Hello,

I have sent an e-mail to the CDAA requesting an answer to your query.

Just to give you an update: I got a reply from the head of the CDAA,
and have asked some follow-up questions to him.

That's great Thanks very much for all the information.

Regards,

misterg3355-ga