On February 23, 2009, the Bay Area Lawyer Chapter of ACS hosted a panel discussion, "The Future of the Death Penalty," featuring Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Office of the California Attorney General; Natasha Minsker, Death Penalty Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California and Jon B. Streeter, Partner, Keker & Van Nest LLP and former Vice Chairman of the California State Senate Commission on the Fair Administration of Criminal Justice (which in 2008 issued a lengthy, and often critical report on the death penalty in California). Rory Little, Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law, who served in various senior positions in the U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. Department of Justice, including as a member of then-Attorney General Janet Reno's capital case review committee, moderated the panel. The panel, held at at U.C. Hastings College of the Law, was very well attended.

Given the range of panelists, the discussion was lively, but cordial. The panel devoted significant time to the lengthy duration and high cost of capital case review, as well as the overwhelming number of death sentences ultimately overturned on appellate and habeas review. Ms. Minsker took the position that the death penalty will eventually be abolished, at least in California. The big question is when. All of the panelists emphasized the substantial role played by the electorate and elected officials in the administration of the death penalty, with some panelists noting that the tide in the states seems to be turning toward abolition and that public opinion polls suggest that popular support for the death penalty is waning, especially when those polled are informed that the death penalty is actually substantially more expensive for the public than life without the possibility of parole. (This contrasted with certain polls indicating that a significant majority of Californians, at least, still support the death penalty.) The panel also discussed whether the California Attorney General's Office could play a role in "settling" capital cases after judgments are rendered, particularly when the record eventually developed calls into serious question the validity of the judgment.

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