Just moments ago, San Francisco’s CA Supreme Court announced its decision in the death penalty appeal of Richard Allen Davis, who was convicted of the 1993 murder and kidnapping of Petaluma 12-year-old Polly Klaas.
In its 112 page decision, the decision to sentence Davis to death was upheld.
Even those of us who didn’t live here in the Bay Area in 1993 remember this case, in which Klaas was kidnapped at knife point from her mother’s home during a slumber party. After two months of searching, Davis, who had been arrested on parole violations, led police to her strangled body in a shallow grave aside 101 near Cloverdale. Davis, 54, was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for 10 counts, including first-degree murder and kidnapping.
Davis, who you might also know as the poster child for the California’s controversial three-strikes law, can pursue further challenges through habeas corpus petitions in state and federal courts.
