The decision caused all capital sentences in California to be commuted to life in prison . Notably , it made Charles Manson avoid execution following his conviction and death sentence for the Tate murders in 1969 . Sirhan Sirhan also had his death sentence , for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 , commuted to life in prison . Any person ever charged with a murder committed in California before 1972 can not receive the death penalty . The US Supreme Court , in '' Aikens v. California '' , 406 U.S. 813 ( 1972 ) , denied an appeal of a death sentence : Later in 1972 , the people of California amended the state constitution by initiative process to supersede the court ruling and reinstate the death penalty . Rather than simply switch to the federal " cruel and unusual " standard , the amendment , called Proposition 17 , kept the " cruel or unusual " standard , but it followed it with a clause that expressly declared the death penalty to be neither cruel nor unusual
Tate murders
Tate murders
People v. Anderson