USA - California. The California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty for Kevin Darnell Pearson, 34, black

The California Supreme Court decided unanimously to overturn the 1999 death penalty for Kevin Darnell Pearson, 34, black, because a prospective juror was improperly removed for having ambivalent views on capital punishment. In a ruling written by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, the state high court said that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Tomson T. Ong erred when he removed the prospective juror after she said she was uncertain about her position on the death penalty but would impose it if justified. “To exclude from a capital jury all those who will not promise to immovably embrace the death penalty in the case before them unconstitutionally biases the selection process,” Werdegar wrote. As long as a potential juror is capable of considering all sentence alternatives, including the death penalty, he or she is qualified to serve on a death penalty case, the court said. The ruling requires Los Angeles County prosecutors either to ask another jury to sentence Pearson to death or to reduce his sentence to life without the possibility of parole. Pearson was convicted of the murder of Penny Sigler, 43, who was raped, beaten and robbed on Dec. 29, 1998.