Attorneys for the man convicted in the 1993 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas pleaded with a Santa Clara County judge on Friday to reconsider their client’s decades-old death sentence, arguing that a new state law mandates he be given another chance to avoid execution.
Suggesting that “an illegal sentence must be vacated — full stop,” the attorneys for Richard Allen Davis presented their case in court Friday to Judge Benjamin Williams. The hearing follows months of legal filings outlining a bid that, if successful, could invalidate Davis’ death sentence and leave him eligible for a full resentencing.
The judge said he plans to issue a ruling on May 31.
Davis did not appear in-person or via video for Friday’s hearing, opting instead to let his attorney, federal public defender Benjamin Gerson, argue the case without him looking on.
His legal gambit comes more than 30 years after authorities say Davis kidnapped Polly Klaas while the girl was having a slumber party with two friends at her mother’s house in Petaluma. Davis was arrested nearly two months later and led authorities to Polly’s body, which was buried in a shallow grave near Cloverdale.
The case generated worldwide headlines and became a driving force behind California’s Three Strikes law, which calls for life sentences for repeat violent felons.
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Davis’ request this year has faced stiff opposition from the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office, which continued prosecuting the case after it was moved to Santa Clara County due to intense publicity. At the hearing, Sarah Brooks, a deputy district attorney, called parts of Davis’ legal reasoning “frankly absurd,” while suggesting at one point that his legal team was merely using synonyms for established legal theories as a smokescreen to help win their case.
Judge Williams’ most pointed questions appeared to center around whether Davis’ legal argument would not only force the court to invalidate his death sentence, but also the underlying guilty verdict in his case. Davis’ attorneys, however, argued that such an interpretation was going too far.
Regardless of the judge’s ruling, it remains unlikely that Davis will face execution anytime soon. That’s because Gov. Gavin Newsom gave a reprieve for all people sentenced to death by placing a moratorium on the death penalty in 2019. Newsom has since worked to dismantle death row at San Quentin State Prison, though his moves do not provide for the release of any prisoners or alter their current conviction or sentence. Subsequent governors also could undo that moratorium.
After the hearing, Polly’s father, Marc Klaas expressed optimism that the judge would deny Davis’ request. Klaas framed the request as “terribly unfair” to his family, but lauded the prosecutor for making “a compelling argument.”