WAITING LONGER: Ten years ago this week,...
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WAITING LONGER: Ten years ago this week, a judge sentenced the first of 22 Orange County men now on San Quentin’s Death Row. But William Payton, who admitted the 1981 rape/murder of a Garden Grove woman, won’t be the first to die. . . . Appellate justices have spent four years on the issue of just one issue--whether his trial lawyer should have used a Vietnam stress syndrome defense. Some say it may be nearly 20 years before Payton’s appeals are exhausted.
Death Row
Orange County has the third highest number of murderers on California’s Death Row as of Feb. 1.
Ranked by county
Los Angeles: 99
Sacramento: 23
Orange: 22
San Bernardino: 19
Alameda: 19
Riverside: 15
Source: California Department of Corrections
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