SAN FRANCISCO / D.A. won't pursue death in cop slaying / Harris fulfills campaign pledge with decision

** FILE **Undated photo of slain San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza, who was shot Sunday in the Hunterspoint Bayview area of San Francisco. Espinoza, 29, was working undercover in one of the city's most troubled neighborhoods late Saturday when he was shot twice. It was the first killing of an on-duty officer in San Francisco since 1994. (AP Photo/San Francisco Police Dept via The San Francisco Chronicle) Officer Isaac Espinoza was working undercover when he was shot twice and killed. less ** FILE **Undated photo of slain San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza, who was shot Sunday in the Hunterspoint Bayview area of San Francisco. Espinoza, 29, was working undercover in one of the city's ... more Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close SAN FRANCISCO / D.A. won't pursue death in cop slaying / Harris fulfills campaign pledge with decision 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Tuesday she will not seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing a San Francisco police officer over the weekend, a decision that legal experts say is rare if not unprecedented in California.

Instead, Harris said she will charge David Hill, 21, with crimes that could send him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hill is suspected of killing Officer Isaac Espinoza, 29, with an assault weapon and wounding his partner, Officer Barry Parker, 38.

Police say Hill is a Bayview neighborhood gang member who fired on the officers because he didn't want to get caught carrying a semiautomatic rifle.

"Today I want to be very clear: in the city and county of San Francisco, anyone who murders a police officer engaged in his or her duties will be met with the most severe consequences," Harris said. The charges Hill will be arraigned on today -- including murder of a peace officer -- would make him eligible for the death penalty. It is extremely rare -- and possibly unprecedented -- for a district attorney to decide against pursuing that penalty for killing a cop.

The Chronicle reviewed hundreds of cases of peace officers slain in the line of duty posted online at the California Peace Officers Memorial Web site.

The death penalty was restored in California in 1978, but The Chronicle's review found only limited documentation about the outcome of cases before 1987.

Focusing on 90 cases since 1987, the newspaper found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in nearly every case in which a suspect was arrested.

The few exceptions were cases with unusual circumstances, such as one in which a man's weapon discharged accidentally, the bullet striking a police officer on the other side of a door.

The results of The Chronicle's review were supported by legal experts, who could not recall another California case in which prosecutors -- given the option of seeking capital punishment for an accused cop killer -- decided against seeking the death penalty.

"Generally speaking, I would think that was one of the type of cases where prosecutors would think the death penalty was appropriate," said Dane Gillette, who oversees death penalty cases for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

Indeed, murder of a police officer was one of the special circumstances for which voters approved the death penalty in 1977, according to experts, and it is a circumstance that most states with a death penalty recognize as eligible for capital punishment.

But San Francisco is not most states, and Harris campaigned and won, in part, with her pledge not to seek capital punishment.

"I have been very clear about not seeking the death penalty," she said.

By rejecting the death penalty, Harris is not only standing by her pledge, but also being practical, in the opinion of Peter Keane, dean emeritus and professor of law at San Francisco's Golden Gate University School of Law.

"San Francisco juries just don't give the death penalty," he said. "San Francisco votes against the death penalty by about 70 percent to 30, which is different from the state itself."

The effect of that feeling is so profound, Keane said, that it can even make it more difficult to win the initial convictions in cases exposed to the death penalty -- even when the jury knows that it has the final decision over sentencing.

Gary Delagnes, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said Tuesday that given the city's leanings, Harris is pursuing the proper course and understands the severity of the case.

"In most cities in America, this would be a death penalty case," he said, but "(life without possibility of parole) is as much as we can expect in this town."

Some California law enforcement representatives said they were not surprised by Harris's decision, given her campaign pledge, but were nevertheless disappointed.

"I'm sorry, I just think (this crime is) as bad as it gets and deserves the punishment as bad as it gets, and that's the death penalty," said CHP Commissioner Dwight "Spike" Helmick, current president of the California Peace Officers' Association.

But death penalty opponents said Harris is acting within her discretion and within the law, which gives prosecutors the power to decide whether a case should carry the death penalty.

Lance Lindsey, executive director of Death Penalty Focus, said he hopes Harris' decision will bring attention not only to San Francisco, but to the minority of states and majority of other countries that don't even have a death penalty on the books.

But Mike Nevin Jr., a San Francisco police officer and a regular contributor to a number of online conservative forums who has written about the death penalty, said that penalty is already reserved only for a tiny percentage of the most heinous crimes, and that killing a police officer should qualify.

"It's not about the person, the skin behind the badge, it's about the badge itself," he said. "You're talking about people that have absolutely no regard for the public, because if you're willing to kill a cop, you're willing to kill anybody."