Join Public Safety Leaders & Victims to Fix the Death Penalty

By Michele Hanisee

Voters support reform of California’s death penalty. It has become ineffective because of waste, delays, and inefficiencies.  Fixing it will save California taxpayers millions of dollars every year, assure due process protections for those sentenced to death and promote justice for murder victims and their families. Death row inmates have murdered over 1000 victims, including 226 children and 43 police officers; 294 victims were raped and/or tortured.  It’s time California reformed our death penalty process so it works.

On October 20, 2015, the California Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016 was submitted for the November 2016 ballot.

This initiative will ensure justice for both victims and defendants by:

  • Expanding the pool of available defense attorneys.
  • Requiring that a defendant who is sentenced to death is appointed a lawyer at the time of sentence, rather than waiting for years just to get a lawyer.
  • Allowing the Department of Corrections to house condemned inmates in less costly housing with fewer special privileges.
  • Requiring that condemned inmates work and pay restitution to victims.
  • Allowing CDCR to enact an execution protocol without having to reply to every question or suggestion by any citizen who sends them a letter.
  • Giving the California Supreme Court oversight over the state agency that manages death penalty appeals.

California’s death row includes serial killers, cop killers, child killers, mass murderers, and hate crime killers. The death penalty system is broken, but it can and should be fixed.

You can learn more by going to www.deathpenaltyreform.com. On their website you will be able to sign up for updates, join the coalition.

Your contribution is critical to our efforts to reform the criminal justice system. Please contribute and support our efforts!

Follow us and share our work on social media. Like Californians for Death Penalty Reform and Savings on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to be part of our community and to receive regular updates about important issues surrounding our efforts.  We strongly believe that progress will be made when more people learn about the facts behind our efforts to fix the death penalty. Please join our efforts by sharing, retweeting the campaigns posts and sign up here to receive regular updates on the campaign.

To read my previous blog, Years of Deliberate Foot-dragging by California State Officials on Death Penalty Ends with Announcement of One Drug Protocol, click here.

Michele Hanisee is Vice President of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA).  The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA)

Let’s Stop Behaving Like Luddites

By Anthony Colannino

It has been said that the problem with being a hammer is that every problem begins to look like a nail. The same can be said for lawyers and laws. And like hammers, laws are blunt instruments whose destructive capacity equals or exceeds their constructive uses. These two premises are the concerns I have with ADDA President Mark Debbaudt’s proposition that the millions of pages of existing prohibitions and regulations – both statutory and common law – are insufficient to regulate and control the use of drones. Knee-jerk reactions that “something has to be done” because of anecdotal claims invariably tend to the destructive rather than the constructive.

Just look at Mr. Debbaudt’s title: “Proliferation of drones requires swift and powerful response.” Sounds ominous. In standard rhetorical fashion, Mr. Debbaudt then constructs his parade of horribles to justify the need for “swift and powerful response.” (Tellingly, it’s a short procession consisting of just three anecdotes: one small drone once flew over a fire, one even smaller drone once fell onto a little girl on a street and the FAA has discovered that with three times more drones in the sky, pilots are now seeing drones three times as often.)

Based on this, what should that swift and powerful response look like according to Mr. Debbaudt? New laws! According to Mr. Debbaudt, “It’s going to take registration. It’s going to take education. And, above all, it’s going to take the strongest possible civil and criminal penalties against people who break the rules or who fail to register their drones.” Therefore, “public safety agencies and organizations and [sic] support any and all local, state and federal ordinances and laws that would impose penalties against people who misuse drones or fly them irresponsibly.”

Really? Mr. Debbaudt speaks for all public safety agencies and organizations? (As President, Mr. Debbaudt doesn’t even speak for the ADDA any more than I, as its Secretary.) Really? All public safety agencies and organizations support “any and all local, state and federal ordinances and laws that would impose penalties against people who misuse drones or fly them irresponsibly?”

Regardless of the law’s potential for unintended consequences? Regardless of the law’s collateral effects of stunting innovation, limiting personal freedom and creating a minefield of regulations that can turn even the most law-abiding individual into an unwitting criminal? We really support “any law” that imposes the “strongest possible civil and criminal penalties” on someone who’s hobby drone accidentally flies over another’s unmarked and undeveloped rural vacation property as did the proposed law that Mr. Debbaudt laments Governor Brown vetoed?

Let’s face it; all the good laws were written over five-thousand years ago. Don’t murder, don’t assault, don’t steal, don’t … you get the idea. It is a unique mental condition of the ruling class that believes new technologies are, in some way, incapable of fitting within the framework of existing laws and that only they, through the creation of even more complex legal codes, can correct this imbalance in the force.

Before we construct a new hammer, let’s examine what already exists in our already overly-bloated toolbox.

Anthony Colannino is Secretary of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys .  The view and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ADDA which represents nearly 1,000 Los Angeles deputy district attorneys.

Death Penalty Reforms Needed in California

By Kermit Alexander

California’s death penalty system needs to change.

The Death Penalty is not an easy topic to discuss. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we lived in a perfect world where we did not have to worry about protecting our family and loved ones from evil? However, we do! As many of our friends and family know, my mother, sister and two nephews were murdered in 1984 in a home invasion murder for hire. An 18-year-old rolling 60’s Crips gang member, Tiqueon Cox, along with two accomplices entered my mother Ebora’s home, and shot her in the head while she was drinking her morning cup of coffee. He then executed my 24-year-old sister, Dietra, while she was still sleeping in her bed and then in an effort not to leave any witnesses, murdered my two nephews 8 and 12 while they slept. The trigger man was hired to carry out an execution.

The irony is that these killers went to the wrong address – yep, they made a mistake – couldn’t read the correct address. They had been paid by a bar owner to kill a young lady who lived down the street. She had been tragically injured in his night-club and instead of paying out a lawsuit – he wanted to eliminate one.

The man that committed that murder has been on death row for over 27 years. He will celebrate another birthday on December 1st. He has exhausted all of his appeals on both the state and federal levels. The only barrier to justice at this point is California’s failure to hold this killer accountable.

The State of California promised the residents and the victims that this man’s crimes met the criteria necessary to impose death. The jury found him guilty of his crime and backed the recommendation for execution. The judge sentenced this killer to die in California’s death chamber and yet, he still waits to receive an execution date.

While on death row, this killer has continued to operate as a shot caller being classified the most dangerous man on death row. In 2001, Tiqueon Cox attempted a violent takeover of the Super Max Adjustment Center at San Quentin. His goal was not to escape but to “kill as many guards as possible.” He is also responsible for repeated assaults on fellow inmates and correctional officers.

As with many on death row, Cox, is the perfect example of the need to have a death penalty. What greater sentence could there be for a guy who walks into a grandmother’s house and executes her and her family, by mistake, for a mere $3500. His disregard for human life and values both before and during prison is justification for setting an execution date. It is sad that the victims must continue to fight for their right to see justice.

Justice is not easy – it is a difficult yet necessary part of our society. And Justice isn’t gentle. But Justice denied – isn’t Justice.

Capital punishment was enacted and reinstated to remind criminals that if you act in a violent way and show no remorse – don’t expect society to coddle you. The crimes committed by the people who murdered my family are not in question; their appeals are not in question – only the protocol by which we execute has come under question. Justice isn’t easy and Justice isn’t gentle. But justice denied – isn’t justice.

However, California’s death penalty has become ineffective because of waste, delays and inefficiencies. A coalition of district attorneys, law enforcement and victim’s rights advocates like me are proposing a statewide ballot initiative to change the death penalty system in California.

The California Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016 would fix the broken death penalty system. The initiative would change the lengthy appeals process by expanding the pool of appellate attorneys and appointing lawyers to the cases at time of sentencing, reform death row housing and restitution and reform the appointment of appellate counsel and agency oversight.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney, Mike Ramos, may have said it best when he said, “California’s 730-plus death row inmates have murdered more than 1,000 people, including 229 children and 43 police officers. I stand with the victims and their families to unite for changes in California’s death penalty system.”

Justice isn’t easy and justice isn’t gentle but justice denied isn’t Justice.

Kermit Alexander, who was a defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers from 1963 to 1969, is a death penalty reform advocate.

Proliferation of drones requires swift and powerful response

By Marc Debbaudt

There’s no question that small drones serve some legitimate purposes.

They can perform tasks that are dangerous for pilots of manned aircraft, such as powerline and smokestack inspections. They can film movie scenes that can’t be filmed by helicopters. And, for the average person, they can be a fun toy to play with.

But therein lies the problem: One person’s fun is another person’s danger. In August, a hobby drone forced a LAPD helicopter to take evasive action while searching for a suspect in Hollywood.  Drones are a real danger every time the LAPD deploys one of their 17 helicopters.

FAA statistics show that pilots have reported almost three times as many drone sightings in the first eight months of 2015 than they reported in all of 2014. Many of the reports were around busy airports such as LAX. It is not just police helicopters that are in danger; drones have also interfered with aircraft fighting wildfires, and medical helicopters. If a bird can damage an aircraft engine or windshield, we can only imagine what a drone could do. The results could be deadly.

Drones also can endanger innocent bystanders on the ground. In September, an 11 month-old girl was injured by a quadcopter that crashed on a Pasadena street.

One of the main problems is that many drone operators have no aviation experience and are ignorant of the rules for safe flying. But clearly, some people simply don’t give a damn that their actions could threaten the safety of hundreds of others.

It’s likely the problem is going to get worse before it gets better. Industry groups are predicting that hundreds of thousands of drones will be sold in the U.S. this holiday season. That means hundreds of thousands of additional people with no aviation knowledge are suddenly going to have access to the airspace.

There are other causes for concern beyond the threats posed by ignorant drone operators. What about the terrorist or criminal who attaches a gun or bomb to a drone? And what about privacy? What is going to stop a pervert from using a camera-equipped drone to peek in on a woman who’s changing her clothes in her bedroom or a busy-body from snooping on what the neighbors are doing in their back yard?

The FAA announced in October that they’re going to require most small, personal drones to be registered, just like manned aircraft. This is a positive step. Knowing your name is linked to your drone will probably spur some people to think twice about their actions.

But the devil is in the details. Which drones are going to be exempt from registration? Will registration apply to drones that were bought before the requirement takes effect? How are they going to ensure people actually register their drones? What about drones that are sold second-hand? And how would registration actually prevent people from flying illegally, irresponsibly or immorally?

There won’t be any single solution to drone safety. It’s going to take registration. It’s going to take education. And, above all, it’s going to take the strongest possible civil and criminal penalties against people who break the rules or who fail to register their drones.

Accordingly, public safety agencies and organizations and support any and all local, state and federal ordinances and laws that would impose penalties against people who misuse drones or fly them irresponsibly.

The FAA recently announced a $1.9 million fine against a company that illegally operated drones over New York and Chicago. I hope this sends a powerful message.  While I am disappointed that Governor Jerry Brown recently vetoed a bill that limits the use of drones unauthorized drones in emergency zones, public safety organizations will continue to support legislation that prohibits civilians from flying drones over wildfires, schools and prisons.

Enacting swift and forceful punishment will be the most effective method of deterring irresponsible behavior.  While punishment is not the only answer, sadly only when people start going to jail or pay crippling fines for dangerous or improper drone operations will the message really be driven home.

Marc Debbaudt is President of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys . The view and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ADDA which represents nearly 1,000 Los Angeles deputy district attorneys.

Proposition 47 lottery: When will your crime victim number be called?

By Marc Debbaudt

This past week I engaged in a radio debate on Which Way, L.A. with San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon over the effect that Proposition 47 has had on the crime rate in California. Prop. 47, as you now know, is a law that was deliberately mistitled The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act – like putting the label “Health Product” on a bottle of arsenic.  Mr. Gascon was introduced as a District Attorney opposing my view, but the audience was not told that he, in fact, was one of the two sponsors of the disastrous initiative.

By reducing drug possession and theft crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, Mr. Gascon’s initiative made the streets of California less safe. In short, Prop. 47 set loose drug addicts, who characteristically commit thefts to support their habits, with their addictions untreated. Not surprisingly, theft crimes have skyrocketed.

Predictably, Mr. Gascon spun furiously in an attempt to deny the link between the increased crime rate and his reckless social agenda. Mr. Gascon actually argued that it was “a huge leap” to connect the increase of crime with the passage of Prop. 47.  He would have us believe that the crime surge is due to a new class of criminals that suddenly sprung up from the ether and invaded this state –  not the ones who were released as a result of Prop 47.

As I pointed out in my Los Angeles Times Op-ed and during my appearance on Which Way, LA,  law enforcement professionals – including the California District Attorneys Association – predicted that reducing felonies to misdemeanors would result in increased crime. One critical and fundamental flaw with Prop. 47 is that repeat offenders do not get any enhanced punishment – or, for that matter, treatment. Moreover, without the threat of incarceration, those addicted to drugs who steal to support their habits have no incentive to enter into drug treatment programs.

Possess and possess – even date rape drugs – and it is still a misdemeanor.  Steal and steal and it remains a misdemeanor.  Keep stealing, but keep it under $950 per victim, and you get a misdemeanor. Why does Mr. Gascon believe that if you steal $949 worth of goods for the fourth time it should still be a misdemeanor? How does this protect the public? I believe a survey of prosecutors and even police officers would reveal that most, if not all, do not think all first-time drug possessors should be charged with felonies.  But what prosecutors want is the discretion to punish appropriately those who continually violate the law.

Mr. Gascon actually argued that crime has gone up “in other parts of the country that don’t have Prop 47.” The inference is that there is some other national cause to the increase in crime in California, as though there is any relevant link between what is happening in other states and what is happening in post-Prop. 47 California.  He then weakly demanded we all await a study to tell him what we already know is obviously true.

Maybe it is only in San Francisco that one believes there’s an inexplicable coincidence that a law minimizing the consequences of theft would result in more theft.  Unfortunately, those people would have to ignore what has happened to San Francisco itself, where Mr. Gascon implemented his version of Proposition 47 in the years before the initiative.   Having decided to stop aggressively prosecuting property crimes and drug offenses, San Francisco crime rates rose significantly.  The city saw a 20 percent leap in property and violent crime between 2012 and 2013 while the rest of the state’s big cities as a whole saw a reduction in crime rates.

How could a responsible District Attorney, knowing his experiment had failed, want to export that failure to the rest of California? He must surely know that San Francisco now suffers one of the highest property crime rates in the State of California. A property crime comparison per 1,000 residents shows the odds of being a victim are 1 in 17 in San Francisco, compared to 1 in 38 in the rest of the state.  Good luck if you own a car in San Francisco; car burglaries jumped a staggering 47 percent in the first half of 2015, and San Francisco police officials cited Proposition 47 as a culprit. Rank and file San Francisco police officers told the local newspaper that “they don’t go after as many criminals as they used to because they feel the District Attorney’s Office will only slap them on the wrist instead of charging them with serious crimes.”

It is not just the victimization that Prop. 47 has unleashed on California residents and businesses that makes it a miserable failure. It is also that the intended goal of changing the behavior of drug addicts and thieves has not been advanced because incarceration was removed as an incentive to entering, and following through on, drug treatment programs.  As an extensive Washington Post article found, drug court and treatment programs around the state have disappeared as misdemeanor defendants increasingly refuse to enter the programs. They are choosing instead to serve their short jail sentences and be released, with no probation conditions or consequences for failed compliance hanging over their head.

That’s because there often are no real consequences for misdemeanor theft offenses. So former felons who are now misdemeanor defendants don’t show up for court to face their charges.  Unlike those facing felony charges, misdemeanor defendants are rarely held in custody pre-trial. As a result, failure to appear in court to face misdemeanor theft charges is common.  Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig called it the “revolving door on these low-level arrests,” where defendants are charged, never show up for court, and get arrested after committing yet another crime.

And even if a defendant shows up, there is little consequence for a misdemeanor conviction. Gascon argued during our debate that the potential one-year sentence that these offenders face for drug possession or theft is a significant amount of time.  That argument ignores the real world, where misdemeanor defendants actually face little to no jail time.

With Prop. 47, California residents and businesses now literally pay the price for a great adventure in reckless social engineering. People pay out of their own pockets when they become theft victims. Even if they are insured it is likely they pay a deductible. And if they report the loss, they risk a rise in premiums.  Because of Prop.47, the true cost of crime has been transferred from the criminal to the victim.  Society as a whole pays to investigate, prosecute and incarcerate thieves, and to fund the judicial system with courtroom time, judges, prosecutors, public defenders, clerks, bailiffs, court reporters and jurors. The residents and visitors to our great state bear the financial brunt of thefts that will likely not be solved, or if solved, not punished.

And there’s my major gripe. All of Mr. Gascon’s financial arguments about the costs of incarceration never address the costs to society and to the victims in releasing these criminals. The victims are forgotten. Their actual losses and the emotional trauma they experience are ignored. All of Prop.47’s compassion goes to the offenders. Mr. Gascon asserts that we are “addicted to incarceration.” Sadly, that is the only addiction that appears to trouble him. The addiction to drugs that leads to theft does not bother him at all.  He calls drug addiction a health problem, but it is the only health problem that has as a key component the repeat victimization of innocent people.

While I understand there is room for compassion, my position is simple. Compassion should start with the victims. Compassion should insist on public safety first. If that makes me, in Gascon’s terms, “a tough law and order aggressive prosecutor,” I happily accept that label.  Mr. Gascon seems to believe that punishment and accountability are bad words, and that rehabilitation, which focuses only on the defendant, should be the goal of the criminal justice system. It is a sad day in California when an elected District Attorney, whose primary obligation is the safety of the community, sees residents and businesses as acceptable collateral damage in achieving his vision of a lopsided social utopia, tilted to benefit thieves and addicts.

Mr. Gascon essentially played a game with Californians. He convinced voters to roll back-alley dice in the Prop. 47 crime lottery. When your number comes up, it is because you are a crime victim or you are paying the costs of the crimes – sacrificed for a horribly misguided quest to avoid any significant penalties for drug addicts who steal from others to support their habits.

Marc Debbaudt is President of the Association of  Deputy District Attorneys . The view and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ADDA which represents nearly 1,000 Los Angeles deputy district attorneys.

Boycott the cop-hater Tarantino: Let him know hate speech has consequences

The message was bad enough: Police officers are murderers. But the timing and context in which film director Quentin Tarantino delivered it was perhaps even worse.

Tarantino referred to police as murderers during an anti-cop march last weekend in New York City. He demonstrated an almost unimaginable level of callousness by making this statement just four days after NYPD Officer Randolph Holder was murdered when a gunman shot him in the head. He apparently was oblivious to the irony of the situation: as he vilified police as murderous thugs, NYPD officers were protecting him and his fellow protesters by safely clearing a path for them.

In the wake of Tarantino’s crass and inexcusable comments, police unions in New York and Los Angeles called for a boycott of the director’s films.

The ADDA wholeheartedly supports this call to action. The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. It does not guarantee the speaker will face no consequences for exercising that right. Let’s make the cop-hating director know there are consequences for irresponsible rhetoric that endangers police safety by fomenting hatred against them. Let’s do it in a way that ensures he will get the message: by hitting him in the pocket book.

The ADDA urges public safety organizations throughout the country to join in the boycott of Tarantino’s violence-infused films, and to encourage their members to spread the word using every means possible. By speaking to co-workers, friends, family and acquaintances. By contacting the media and using social media. By blogging and writing op-eds.

There is always a place for rational discourse about how law enforcement interacts with the citizens they protect. But there is never a place for hate speech that helps incite violence against the brave men and women who keep this nation’s residents – including people who vilify them, like Mr. Tarantino – safe at night.

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA) is the collective bargaining agent representing nearly 1,000 deputy district attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.

Years of Deliberate Foot-dragging by California State Officials on Death Penalty Ends With Announcement of One Drug Protocol

By Michele Hanisee

After years of deliberate foot-dragging by state officials who refused to adopt an execution protocol to avoid the uncomfortable possibility of anyone actually being executed, Governor Brown will soon announce that California, once again, has an execution protocol.  This progress was not motivated by the fact that an initiative to end capital punishment was defeated by voters in 2012.  Nor was it the 49 new death verdicts handed down by California juries since the defeat of Proposition 34.  In the end, it was a lawsuit by crime victims that forced a state agency to do what it is supposed to do – enforce the law.

Thankfully, it appears that the state will finally opt for the single-drug lethal injection method that death penalty opponents and proponents alike have documented as being a more humane and reliable method of execution.

California’s last execution occurred over 9 years ago when Clarence Ray Allen was executed for a triple murder.  Allen was already serving a life sentence for the murder of Mary Sue Kitts who he had killed to prevent her informing on him for a robbery he had committed at Fran’s Market in Fresno.  While in Folsom Prison, Allen conspired to murder three of the witnesses who had testified against him at trial.  When Allen’s co-conspirator, Billy Ray Hamilton was paroled, Hamilton drove to Fran’s Market where he executed the owner’s son, Bryon Schletewitz, and two teenage employees with a shotgun.

Attempt to Circumvent the Law

The sordid history of this attempt to circumvent the law began in 2006 when convicted murderer Michael Morales filed a lawsuit under the 8th Amendment challenging California’s three-drug protocol on the eve of his execution, claiming it was cruel and unusual.

Morales, is on death row for the rape and murder of 17-year-old Terri Winchell.  Morales first tried to strangle Winchell to death with a belt, then beat her on the head with a hammer, crushing her skull. He then dragged the unconscious, but still living girl into a vineyard where he raped her.  After raping her, Morales stabbed Winchell multiple times.

Experts at the court hearings testified that a single-drug method of execution using an anesthetic alone would avoid the problems that the petitioners claimed were inherent in the three-drug method.  Federal Judge Jeremy Fogel, ordered a conditional stay of execution that would have permitted the state to execute Morales if the state used the single-drug method.  During the lawsuit, Judge Fogel requested the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to enact a new protocol and encouraged the state to consider the single-drug method then being successfully used in other states.

Numerous other states had, by that time, switched to a single-drug method of execution and performed executions without any problems.  Motions to stay those executions were denied by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.  Inexplicably, California developed a new protocol that once-again, called for a three-drug method of execution.  The state began the process of enacting the regulation, which required review under the Administrative Procedures Act.

For the 99.999% of people unfamiliar with the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), it is a state law created with the laudable goal of requiring state agencies to consider input from those who would be affected by a proposed regulation.  The APA allows individuals to comment on a proposed regulation or suggest alternatives.  It also requires the state agency to respond meaningfully to all comments and suggestions.

Predictably, when CDCR began the APA process to enact the new execution protocol, it was flooded with over 30,000 comments from death penalty opponents, each of which required, by the terms of the APA, a meaningful response.  In December of 2011, Judge Faye D’Opal found that the state failed to respond meaningfully to each and every public comment and failed to consider meaningfully a single-drug method as an alternative to the three-drug method the state was then clinging to.

In response, the State of California did—nothing; for the nine years since it was suggested by experts and recommended by a federal judge, the State made no attempt to adopt an effective one-drug method. It took a successful 2014 lawsuit by Bradley Winchell and Kermit Alexander, who have family members killed by those on death row, to force the State to act.  The lawsuit was settled when the State agreed to begin development of a new protocol within 120 days of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Glossip v. Gross.

The Midazolam Issue

Glossip v. Gross was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which Oklahoma death row inmates challenged Oklahoma’s use of a two-drug method of execution that used midazolam as the sedative.  Midazolam, the lawsuit claimed, fails to fully sedate inmates and provide the level of deep unconsciousness that surgical grade barbiturates produce.  The petitioners pointed to Oklahoma’s “botched” execution of Clayton Lockett who failed to die promptly after the drugs were administered but died, some 43 minutes later of a heart attack.  It was later found that the problem arose from an improperly placed I.V.  The U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition and upheld as Constitutional Oklahoma’s two-drug method using midazolam.

New Protocol

California finally started paying attention.  The new protocol to be announced by the Governor is a single-drug method that does not call for midazolam, but instead uses, tried and true, surgical-quality barbiturates.  This method, which many other states have already switched to, is the same method used to humanely euthanize our beloved pets.  The drugs used in California’s new protocol are the same class of drugs used to provide a merciful end of life to terminally ill patients in Oregon, Washington and Vermont, where assisted suicide has been legal for years.  It is presumably the same drugs that will be used to end life under the new Death With Dignity Act that Governor Brown just signed into law.

There are 17 inmates on California’s death row who have exhausted all appeals and are eligible for execution.  As detailed below, their crimes are brutal, and it has only been as a result of deliberate attempts by California officials to sabotage capital punishment that they have not yet been executed.  As we discuss the resumption of capital punishment, it is critical to remind the public of the horrific crimes which resulted in juries voting to impose death.

17 Acts of Horror

1. Albert Greenwood Brown – Date of Crime: 1980

Albert Brown was sentenced to die for the rape and murder of a California high school student. Brown abducted 15-year-old Susan Louise Jordan while she was on her way to Arlington High School in Riverside. He had been posing as a jogger on the route. After dragging her to an orange grove, Brown brutally raped and sodomized her and strangled her to death with her own shoelace; he also took her identification cards and school books. After finding the family’s number in a phone book, Brown called Angelina Jordan from a payphone to tell her where he left her daughter’s body.  According to court documents, he said: “Hello, Mrs. Jordan, Susie isn’t home from school yet, is she? You will never see your daughter again. You can find her body on the corner of Victoria and Gibson.” Susan’s body was found after Brown repeatedly made calls to the Riverside Police Department and the Jordan residence.

2. David Allen Raley – Date of Crime: 1985

David Raley was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Jeanine Grinsell on February 2, 1985, in San Mateo County. The jury also found Raley guilty of attempted murder of a second girl who survived the ordeal, Laurie McKenna, then 17.  Raley, who worked as a security guard at the Carolands mansion, stabbed both girls dozens of times, then locked them in the trunk of his car and went home to play Monopoly with his family. Later, thinking they were both dead, he dumped both girls in a nearby ravine. McKenna, bloodied and battered, pulled herself out the next morning and flagged down a passing car. At the time, both girls were still alive but Grinsell was later pronounced dead in a hospital. An autopsy disclosed 41 stab wounds and a skull fracture.

3. Douglas S. Mickey – Date of Crime: 1980

Douglas Mickey killed Placer County residents, Eric Hanson, 29, and Catherine Blount, 19. The two were killed in their rural home off Wise Road in Ophir. Mickey first bludgeoned Hanson with a baseball bat and slit his throat from ear to ear down to the spinal cord. He then stabbed Blount seven times in the chest. Three of the blows pierced her heart. Mickey left the house, taking substantial property with him, and drove away in Hanson’s Volkswagen.

4. Fernando Belmontes, Jr. – Date of crime: 1981

Fernando Belmontes drove to the San Joaquin Valley home of acquaintance, Steacy McConnell, hoping to steal her stereo while she was out. Unfortunately, Belmontes had miscalculated, and McConnell was home – and in an apparent effort to do away with the only witness to his crime, Belmontes pounded her head 15 to 20 times with an iron dumbbell, crushing her skull. McConnell’s parents arrived home later to find their 19-year-old daughter dead on the floor in a pool of blood. Meanwhile, Belmontes and two accomplices had sold McConnell’s stolen stereo for $100 and bought some beer.

5. Harvey Lee Heishman III – Date of Crime: 1979

Harvey Lee Heishman III was convicted of the first-degree murder of Nancy Lugassy, with the special circumstance that she was a witness to a crime who was intentionally killed to prevent her testimony. Nancy lived in a cottage in Oakland. On July 22, 1979, about 11 p.m., she ran screaming to her neighbor’s and said she had just been raped. On August 9, she unhesitatingly selected Heishman’s picture from a photo lineup. She continually expressed fear of him. On August 10, a complaint was filed against him on the rape charge. While out on bail, Heishman returned to Lugassy’s home and shot her to death.  Heishman was identified as the killer by two women who testified, under grants of immunity from prosecution, that they were involved in his murder plot.

6. James Nelson Blair – Date of Crime: 1986

James Nelson Blair was convicted on July 19, 1985, of the attempted murders of Dorothy Green and Rhoda Miller by placing cyanide in a bottle of gin from which they drank. He was sentenced to a term of 14 years and 4 months, and his conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal. In October 1986, after Dorothy Green died as a result of complications from the poisoning, Blair was charged with murder. On May 2, 1989, a jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree and found true the special circumstance that he intentionally killed the victim by poison.

7. Kevin Cooper – Date of Crime: 1983

Kevin Cooper killed Bill Hughes in cold blood.  Bill Hughes arrived at the home in Chino Hills where his 11-year-old son Christopher had spent the night with his friend, Josh Ryen. Inside, he found Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and his own son dead. They had been chopped with a hatchet, sliced with a knife, and stabbed with an icepick. Josh, the 8-year-old son of Douglas and Peggy, had survived. His throat had been cut. The family station wagon was gone. Hours before he was to be put to death in San Quentin in 2004, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave Cooper a stay, allowing the defense to file more motions and eventually conduct new DNA results. Those tests found his DNA on several key pieces of evidence, supporting his guilt.

8. Michael Angelo Morales – Date of Crime: 1981

Michael Angelo Morales murdered 17-year-old Terri Winchell on January 8, 1981. Winchell’s boyfriend at the time was also secretly involved in a gay relationship with Richard Ortega, a cousin of Morales. Ortega hired Morales to kill Winchell so that Ortega could have an exclusive relationship with his male lover. Ortega invited Winchell to accompany him on a shopping excursion. Morales, who was also in the automobile, attacked Winchell and tried to strangle her with his belt. When the belt broke, Morales then struck her multiple times in the head with a hammer, beating her into unconsciousness, and crushing her skull. Ortega and Morales then drove to an isolated area, where Morales dragged Winchell facedown across the road and into a vineyard, where he raped her and stabbed her four times in the chest. Winchell died from both the head and chest wounds.  The police found Morales’ broken belt, containing Terri Winchell’s blood, the hammer bearing traces of blood and Terri’s purse and credit card in Morales’ home.  Morales had used $11 from Terri’s purse to buy beer, wine, and cigarettes on the night of the murder.

9. Mitchell Carlton Sims – Date of Crime: 1985

After robbing and shooting to death his two co-workers at a South Carolina Domino’s Pizza, Mitchell Sims and his girlfriend Ruby Padgett fled to California to continue the murder spree.  Mitchell Sims rented a Glendale motel room then ordered a Domino’s pizza.  When pizza deliveryman, John Harrington, entered the motel room, Sims and Padgett held him at gunpoint.  They then hogtied Harrigan, shoved a sock in his mouth, put a pillowcase over his head and tied a shoelace so tightly around Harrigan’s neck that it would have caused strangulation.  But while Harrigan was still alive, Sims placed him face-down in a bathtub full of water.  After watching Harrigan’s last struggle for life, Sims put on Harrigan’s uniform, and went to the Domino’s where Harrigan worked.  Sims robbed the two other employees and then left them locked in the freezer, bound in such a way that they were forced to stand on tip-toe to avoid hanging themselves. Sims and Padgett were apprehended in a Las Vegas motel room with the cash bag from the Glendale Domino’s and the Las Vegas Yellow Pages listing for local Domino’s Pizza.

10. Richard Gonzales Samayoa – Date of Crime: 1985

Richard Samayoa beat Nelia Silva to death with a wrench in the course of burglarizing her home. Samayoa also beat to death Nelia’s two-year-old daughter, Katherine. The pathologist estimated that Nelia was struck in the head 24 times. The jury heard testimony that the faces of both mother and daughter were smashed in, their skulls crushed, and fragments of bone penetrated their brains. It is undisputed that Samayoa left Nelia and Katherine naked from the waist down – he said he did that to make the crime look like a rape – and then he stole jewelry from the Silva house that he gave away as gifts to members of his family. The mutilated bodies of both victims were found by Rolando Silva, Nelia’s husband and Katherine’s father.

11. Robert G. Fairbank – Date of Crime: 1985

Four days after a San Francisco judge released Robert Fairbank without bail on a rape charge,  Fairbank waylaid 24-year-old graduate student Wendy Cheek as she was on her way to a party.  Fairbank, raped Cheek then stabbed her with multiple objects, described by the coroner as being consistent with a knife, a Phillips-head screwdriver,  and a barbecue fork.  Fairbank then set Cheek’s body on fire.

12. Ronald Lee Deere – Date of Crime: 1982

Apparently despondent over the termination of his relationship with Cindy Gleason, Ronald Deere shot and killed the husband and two young children of Ms. Gleason’s sister, Kathy Davis. Defendant had previously threatened to kill “everyone” in Ms. Gleason’s family if she stopped seeing him. Shortly before the killings, Ms. Gleason received a telephone call from defendant telling her that “I’m not going to be responsible for what I do today.” Later that night, Ms. Gleason and Ms. Davis discovered the bodies of Don, Michelle and Melissa Davis in Don’s trailer. Deere fled and hid from the police; he was arrested several days later.

13. Royal Kenneth Hayes – Date of Crime: 1982

In December of 1981, Donald MacVicar and Lauren de Laet sought to buy cocaine from Royal Hayes. Instead, Hayes and his co-conspirators lured the two to a secluded location in the woods where Hayes had already dug graves.  Hayes shot each victim in the head and buried them.  Nearly two months later, a mushroom hunter discovered fragments of what later turned out to be de Laet’s skull.

14. Scott Lynn Pinholster – Date of Crime: 1982

Scott Pinholster was convicted of murdering Robert Beckett, 29, and Thomas Johnson, 25, on January 9, 1982.  Pinholster solicited two other men to join him in robbing a local drug dealer. The plot quickly went awry.  Pinholster repeatedly stabbed one victim in the chest with a buck knife, killing him. He kicked in the head another victim, who had been mortally wounded by one of Pinholster’s associates. At the apartment, Pinholster washed his knife, and the three split the proceeds of the robbery: $23 and one quarter-ounce of marijuana.

15. Stevie Lamar Fields – Date of Crime: 1978

Stevie Lamar Fields‘ case is one of the oldest on California’s Death Row. Fields was on parole for manslaughter when he went on a three-week wave of violent crimes in September 1978. He had been out of prison for just two weeks. Fields was convicted of three rapes, one robbery, two kidnappings and the murder of Rosemary Cobbs, a 26-year-old graduate student and librarian at the University of Southern California. According to the trial record, he tied her to the rails of his bed, forced her to write checks to him, ordered her into a car, then shot her six times and beat her until she died.

16. Tiequon Aundray “Lil Fee” Cox – Date of Crime: 1984

Tiequon Cox, a Los Angles gang member, went to carry out a retaliatory gang shooting, but went to the wrong address.  In the early morning hours on Aug. 31, 1984, Cox and Darren Williams entered a home on 59th Street in Los Angeles after Williams mistakenly wrote the wrong address on a sheet of paper. A “scene of horror” is how Judge Graber described what police saw when they found.  Cox and Williams shot to death Ebora Alexander, 58, and her daughter Dietra Alexander.  Cox and his conspirators then shot to death Dietra’s sons, 6-year-old Damon Boner and 12-year-old Damani Alexander as they slept in their beds.

17. William Charles Payton – Date of Crime: 1980

Patricia Pensinger operated a boarding house in Garden Grove California where she lived with her sons. On May 26, 1980, William Payton, a former boarder, came to the boardinghouse.  Pensinger gave Payton permission to sleep on her couch then returned to her bed, where her ten-year-old son Blaine was asleep. Payton later entered Pensinger’s bedroom, jumped on top of her, and stabbed her and her son repeatedly with a butcher knife. In all, Payton stabbed Pensinger forty times and Blaine twenty-three times, but both survived. When the police arrived, they discovered the lifeless body of another boarder, Pamela Montgomery. She had been stabbed twelve times and sexually assaulted.  Payton’s saliva and semen were found on Montgomery’s body.  Payton’s wife testified at his trial that he arrived at their home that night with his clothes, face, hands, chest, and genitals covered in blood.

(Note: Hyperlinks in the description of the crimes above indicates the primary source for the narrative)

Michele Hanisee is Vice President of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA).  The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the ADDA, which is the collective bargaining agent and represents nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.

One Pension Scheme Shelved – New Ballot Measure Planned

Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio announced they will not be circulating for signatures the pension initiative they previously announced earlier this year-while promising to announce two more pension initiatives. The decision reflects, again, that Reed and company can’t “handle the truth” about their pension schemes.

The recently aborted initiative was a full-fledged assault on the pensions of current employees, and an attempt to eviscerate collective bargaining. As mandated by law, the California Attorney General accurately and truthfully created a ballot initiative title and summary, exposing as a lie Reed and DeMaio’s characterization of the initiative. No doubt mindful of a 2014 court ruling that upheld the Attorney General’s title and summary of Reed’s previous pension initiative; the duo chose not the challenge the interpretation in court.

This of course, did not stop Reed and DeMaio from attacking the summary-but that backfired. Even allies called them out for their duplicity. For example, newspaper columnist Daniel Borenstein wrote that the Attorney General’s summary was accurate, and bluntly stated Reed and DeMaio “shouldn’t continue to falsely pitch the measure.”

However, Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio are clearly desperate to try to avoid accurate descriptions of their initiatives because there is no public support for what they wish to do. A recent public opinion poll revealed that a less than 1/3 of voters believe public employee pensions are a big problem, the lowest number in a decade.

Chuck Reed has had a rough summer, with the San Jose City Council voting to ask a judge to invalidate Reed’s 2012 Measure B pension initiative, a pension initiative that led to the devastation of public safety in San Jose. Carl DeMaio has fared no better — his new occupation of radio talk show host, following failed mayoral and Congressional campaigns, saw his co-host quit after several months rather than continue to work with DeMaio.

Carl DeMaio has recently promised not one, but two, new pension initiatives which he boasts will get around the “political obstacles” of the Attorney General Title and Summaries of Initiatives. However, both the courts and even his close political allies agree that the Title and Summaries of pension initiatives which Reed and DeMaio consider obstacles are simply accurate statements of what the dangerous duo have proposed. What Reed and DeMaio can’t get around, and what they can’t handle, is the truth.

Please read our five previous blogs that detail the pension issue and the financial disaster that Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio still want to create: (1) Attorney General: Reed initiative eliminates constitutional protections for vested pension benefits (2) The destruction Chuck Reed wants to bring to California (3) Attention Shoppers: Don’t Sign that Misleading Pension Petition! (4) Your Pension is Under Attack and (5) Fuzzy Math Continues To Drive Public Pension Hysteria.  If you want to learn more about pensions, we encourage you to visit Let’s Talk Pensions.

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA) is the collective bargaining agent and represents nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.

Public Safety Community Applauds the Rejection SB 443

The public safety community in California is pleased with the defeat yesterday of Senate Bill 443 by Senator Holly Mitchell, a bill that would have impeded the ability of law enforcement agencies to go after drug kingpins. In response to the defeat of SB 443, Marc Debbaudt, President of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, issued the following statement:

“The legislation would have denied every law enforcement agency in California direct receipt of any forfeited assets. California’s asset forfeiture law would have been changed for the worse and this dangerous piece of legislation would have crippled the ability of law enforcement to forfeit assets from drug dealers, especially now, when current laws make arrest and incarceration an incomplete strategy for combating drug trafficking. Narcotics investigations are costly, and the California asset forfeiture law’s dedication of forfeiture proceeds to the seizing law enforcement agencies supplements their serious resource needs when they pursue drug traffickers and their ill gotten gains. SB 443 would have undermined one of the most important tools used to combat complex transnational criminal enterprises.

“After the passage of Proposition 47 and Criminal Justice Realignment, incarceration is NOT a deterrent to narcotics trafficking. To drug dealers, custody time is looked at as a minimal “cost of doing business.” If drug assets are still available to dealers upon release, they go back to the business of selling narcotics. In more sophisticated operations, the drug dealer facing time in custody is merely a foot soldier for the bigger fish to whom the assets actually belong. Passage of the bill would have caused a severe public safety threat – it would have been a license to expand for drug cartels and narcotics trafficking on all levels, endangering our communities and schools.

“I am pleased to see the unified effort of public safety labor and management groups throughout the state who came together to defeat this dangerous bill. Public Safety advocates representing the Association Of Deputy District Attorneys; Association For Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs; California Association Of Code Enforcement Officers; California College & University Police Chiefs Association; California Narcotic Officers Association; Los Angeles Police Protective League; Riverside Sheriffs’ Association, Cal. Chiefs, and many other groups worked tirelessly to educate elected officials regarding this dangerous piece of legislation.”

If you have friends who would like to receive future ADDA press releases, blogs or our popular Monday Morning Memo, please click here. The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA) is the collective bargaining agent and represents nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.

What Realignment Has Done to Restitution Collection and How It Can Be Fixed

By Lydia Bodin

In October of 2011, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. signed Assembly Bills 109 and 117 that created Public Safety Realignment.  Prosecutors are very familiar with the effect and influence of realignment on sentencing and incarceration but are, perhaps, less familiar with the unintentional collateral consequence that made restitution collection impossible at the county level for offenders who are now both supervised and incarcerated locally.

Before the Public Safety Realignment, restitution was and continues to be collected by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and local probation departments. Well-defined collection and distribution systems that were and remain statutorily authorized are in place to ensure that victims could collect on court ordered restitution.  Unfortunately, following realignment, newly created classes of convicted individuals locally supervised and incarcerated were not made subject to any complementary statutory authority to collect restitution.

Many victims in this county are currently not receiving the restitution to which they are entitled because this county has not yet established a collection mechanism that has responded to the negative changes Realignment has brought to the collection of restitution.  As of January 1, 2015, the law fully supported the collection of restitution at the county level from Realignment created classes of convicted individuals.  Our county must now rise to the challenge of collecting restitution in the post-Realignment environment. Article 1, section 28 of the California Constitution gives victims the right to restitution.  In order for that right to be a reality, it is imperative that collection now begin from individuals sentenced pursuant to Penal Code section 1170(h); on mandatory supervision; and, on post-release community supervision.  It should be noted that if these individuals were in state prison as they used to be, they would be subject to restitution collection at the level of 50% from all deposits into their inmate wage and trust accounts.

The following convicted individuals may now be made subject to restitution collection at the county level:

  • County prisoners sentenced pursuant to Penal Code section 1170(h)(A) who serve their time on a blended sentence or who serve their full term in county jail and who are released with no supervision currently could be subject to collection from their inmate wage and trust accounts for up to 50% of each deposit.  Unfortunately there is no agency or mechanism set up to collect in this county.  Penal Code section 2085.5 allows a county board of supervisors to appoint an agency or the Sheriff to collect from inmates in county jail.
  • County prisoners sentenced pursuant to Penal Code section 1170(h)(B) who are on a so-called split sentence and released into the community under the mandatory supervision of  the Probation Department can be subject to statutory authorized collection as of January 1, 2015 pursuant to Penal Code 2085.6. Collection is based upon an ability to pay as determined by the Probation Department.
  • State prisoners who are now on post release community supervision pursuant to Penal Code section 3451 are under the supervision of Probation and will can be subject to statutory authorized collection as of January 1, 2015 pursuant to the newly created Penal Code 2085.6.  Collection is based upon an ability to pay as determined by the Probation Department.

Pursuant to statute, a county board of supervisors must determine who is the collecting agency or agencies in a county.  Once that initial threshold decision is made, counties can establish collection mechanisms and can then collect and distribute restitution.  In this county, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors authorized a working group in November of 2014 to make recommendations to them through the Countywide Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee for the purpose of establishing a restitution collection system in this county.  The committee is chaired by the Office of the Los Angeles District Attorney.  Work has been ongoing for the last eight months to establish a multi-agency integrated system that will collect and distribute restitution in this county from convicted populations created by Public Safety Realignment. The committee is a multi-agency taskforce comprised of the Sheriff; the District Attorney; Public Defender; Probation; the Treasurer-Tax Collector, the Internal Services Division; and, the Auditor Controller.

Prosecutors are keenly aware of the toll that crime takes on victims.  Crime is not just a violation of a law – it is frequently a devastating financial event for many victims.  Recently, I got a call from a woman whose family business had been deeply harmed through the loss of $100,000.00 in embezzled money.  I had to tell her that the defendant, an individual who this woman had assisted and allowed to live in her home, was in county jail on an 1170(h) sentence and that currently there was no collection mechanism in this county.  Several months ago an elderly gentleman asked me if I could get even just a nickel because he wanted to know that the defendant was paying at least something. This same conversation with victims is currently repeated multiple times a day by personnel in the Restitution Enhancement Program.  Victims are consistently incensed and angered by the fact that they cannot get their restitution. Most sadly, their confidence in the justice system is failing.

Absent collection from supervised and incarcerated individuals, victims are left to obtain justice in civil courts by executing the restitution judgment in that arena.  Victims are ill equipped to champion their own restitution collection.  In addition, a greater burden is placed on the civil courts to execute restitution judgments.  It just makes sense to create and strengthen restitution collection in this county.

On September 15, 2015, the Board of Supervisors will vote on the foundational aspects of a collection system in this county. These foundational components include who are the collectors and at what percentage level collection will occur from inmate wage and trust accounts.  Following this initial approval by the supervisors, many more months of work are ahead to establish protocols and a working system that will include county criminal justice partners.  With the approval of the Board of Supervisors to create a viable restitution collection and distribution system, victims will be better served and will have confidence in our ability to both protect and to obtain justice for them.

Lydia Bodin is a member of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA) and is currently serving as the Deputy In Charge of the Restitution Enhancement Program and Abolish Chronic Truancy.  The ADDA is the collective bargaining agent that represents nearly 1,000 Deputy District Attorneys who work for the County of Los Angeles.