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Lee Max Barnett was sentenced to death for the torture and murder of Richard Eggett. Barnett blames prosecution witness Bill Cantwell and his biker associates for the murder. The prosecution did not provide much of a motive for the killing. Its witnesses were admitted lawbreakers who were subject to prosecution deals in exchange for their testimony. In what Barnett terms a “farce of a trial,” his attorney insisted on arguing diminished responsibility despite the fact that Barnett testified to his full innocence.

More than 5 years after the murder, Cantwell confessed to Kenneth Clumpus that he had killed Eggett. Clumpus later told Cantwell that he had taped the conversation. Cantwell replied that he was not prepared to go to prison for the murder and he soon committed suicide. As of this writing, Barnett has assembled a large amount of material in his defense, including sworn statements from several witnesses attesting to his innocence and Cantwell’s guilt.  (TIJ) [2/08]

Reno was convicted of the felony possession of a handgun.  Following his arrest, neither Reno nor his attorneys could locate a witness, Preston Marsh, who could prove his innocence.  Marsh was then on the lam and living under an assumed name.  Reno was sentenced to 25 years to life under the three strikes law.  In 2001, while Reno was working intake at his prison admissions office, he could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the name “Preston Marsh” on a list of new admissions.

Marsh, at some risk to himself, volunteered to come forward.  With the help of the Northern California Innocence Project, Reno was released after serving 6 years.  The DA agreed to the release in exchange for a plea for time served.  (NCIP 01)

In October 1925, the murders of Henry Sweet and Carmen Wagner fostered national headlines. Two local mixed-blood Native Americans, Jack Ryan and his half-brother Walter David were arrested for the crime. Called “halfbreeds” in the press, evidence of their guilt was lacking.  David was released but Ryan was charged with the murder of Wagner after a forensic analyst identified a bullet recovered from the victim and shell casings found near her body as fired from Ryan’s gun. The politics of Prohibition as well as perjury and planted evidence tainted the case, however, and a jury of 12 white men acquitted Ryan after short deliberation.

Within months, a new DA, Stephen Metzler, was elected on a promise to solve the case or resign within two years. After the prosecutor’s men purportedly tortured and murdered David, Ryan was charged with assaulting two young girls.  Following an all-night, third degree interrogation and swift court proceedings, Ryan pleaded guilty to the Sweet murder and was sentenced to life in prison -- all within 24 hours. Ryan later repudiated his confession, but spent 25 years at San Quentin and was paroled in 1953.  Ryan always maintained he did not commit the crimes and did not know who did.  A later investigator found that DA Metzler had paid a woman to testify against Ryan, and had gotten two other women to make similar statements.  Ryan died in 1978, but Gov. Pete Wilson posthumously pardoned him in 1996.  (UC Berkeley) (New Gun Week 6-1-96) (NL)

Stoll was convicted of 17 counts of child molestation involving six children including his five-year-old son.  Two of Stoll’s codefendants won their state appeal 15 years before he did.  His own appeal was denied in part because of a mistake his lawyer had made during the trial—failing to introduce a psychologist’s finding that Stoll showed none of the telltale traits of a pedophile.

Of the six kids who had testified against Stoll then, five—now grown— recanted at a hearing.  Only his son Jed continued to insist that his father had molested him, though under questioning he could give no details.  Stoll's conviction was overturned after he served 20 years of a 40-year sentence.  His charges were dropped.  [6/05]

Los Angeles County:   1922   1942   1961   1980   1990   1995   2003

On April 5, 1922, three men robbed the First National Bank of Arcadia of $2,800 in cash plus $5,420 in bonds and travelers’ checks. The men exited the bank and piled into a car driven by a fourth man, their getaway driver. Police soon located the robbers’ car. It had been stolen and the robbers had abandoned it to get into another car.

Within 45 minutes of the robbery, police stopped a car occupied by Broulio Galindo, Jose Hernandez, Salvador Mendival, and Faustino Rivera. Although police found no loot in the car, they did find five guns and two canvas sacks. The bank employees had stated that the robbers spoke perfect English, but none of the men in the car could speak English. The men, all Mexicans, would tell police that they were orange pickers and that the guns were for rabbit shooting.

The bank employees who witnessed the robbery identified Galindo, Hernandez, and Rivera as the robbers. Mendival was thought to be the getaway driver, and was partially identified by a telephone company employee who was working near the bank at the time of the robbery. Police found that Galindo and Hernandez had been previously convicted of felonies. Rivera died in jail prior to trial. At trial the defendants had to testify through an interpreter.  The prosecution could not explain how they spoke perfect English during the robbery, nor did it attempt to explain what happened to the loot. Galindo, Hernandez, and Mendival were convicted of robbing the bank. However, they were all pardoned in 1924 after the actual perpetrators were discovered.  (CTI)  [6/08]

James W. Preston was convicted of robbing a Los Angeles widow and shooting her when she tried to escape.  The victim, Mrs. Dick R. Parsons lived at 906 W. 50th St.  The perpetrator had entered through a first floor window, and on the dust of the screen, fingerprints were found.  Preston was arrested on a minor charge a few days after the crime.  His fingerprints were compared with those found on the screen, but did not match.  For some reason, however, the Los Angeles newspapers carried stories stating that Preston had been identified as Mrs. Parsons' assailant through the fingerprints.  The source of this misinformation could not be determined.

Mrs. Parsons read these accounts, and when Preston was brought to her bedside she identified him as the man who had shot her, claiming she saw in him the eyes of the masked robber. She also assured the police that Preston's voice, which was admittedly a peculiar one, was the same as the voice that had ordered her to "stick 'em up."

Prior to trial the prosecutor must have been very doubtful of his case, because he kept offering plea deals that became more and more generous.  On the third try, he offered to drop all charges if Preston would plead guilty to simple assault, which carried a maximum sentence of 6 months.  Preston replied, "I didn't do it, and I will not plead guilty to anything."

At trial, the prosecution withheld fingerprint evidence.  Preston had an alibi witness who placed him 22 miles away in Long Beach at the time of the crime.  He also testified in his own defense.  The jury convicted him of robbery, burglary, and assault, but not of assault with intent to murder.  At sentencing the judge appeared to believe that fingerprints found at the crime scene matched those of Preston, though the evidence was not brought up at trial.  Perhaps the judge had read and believed the newspaper stories.  The judge cross-examined Preston at sentencing, mentioned the fingerprint evidence, and seemed incredulous that Preston refused to admit his guilt.  The judge sentenced Preston on each of the three charges ranging from 11 years to life, to be served consecutively.

In May 1926, a match was found from the crime scene fingerprints to a suspect arrested for other burglaries.  While being questioned by the police, the suspect expressed the contempt for fingerprint identification and said:  "Listen! If I told what I knew about fingerprints an innocent man would be released from San Quentin tomorrow."  In Sept. 1926, following the suspect’s conviction for the Parsons’ crime, Governor Richardson granted Preston a full pardon.  (CTI)  [11/07]

Police officers Walter Evans and Miles Ledbetter, both detectives, were convicted of extorting a $750 bribe from Harry McDonald, a person with a criminal record of felonies.  After being arrested in 1929 for receiving stolen property, McDonald surprised the District Attorney by confessing to conspiracy transactions involving over 50 LAPD officers.  Among those were officers Evans and Ledbetter.  McDonald claimed that the officers had in 1928 extorted a $750 bribe from him in exchange for suppressing evidence that McDonald had purchased stolen diamonds from a Jack Hawkins.

At trial, McDonald, his wife, and his maid all swore that Evans and Ledbetter had visited McDonald on a Saturday and Sunday in 1928 and that McDonald had paid the officers a bribe.  The officers countered that they had indeed visited McDonald on Saturday July 7 and Sunday July 8, 1928, but the visits were to investigate an unconnected robbery of two diamond rings.  In rebuttal, McDonald and his wife testified that the detectives could not have visited them on the specified dates as the McDonalds moved to a bungalow in Venice, CA on the Sunday before July 4, and that they were not in Los Angeles for the two weeks thereafter.  The jury chose to believe the McDonalds and convicted the two officers.  In 1930, following unsuccessful appeals, the two officers started serving their sentences in San Quentin.

Later evidence surfaced that McDonald signed a safety-deposit record of a Los Angeles bank on July 9, 1928, so he could not have been out of town that day as he and his wife swore.  Also evidence surfaced that their maid had not been in their employ until after August 8, so she could not have been present on July 7 or July 8.  Coupled with these disclosures, and other discovered facts, California Governor Young pardoned both officers in 1931.  Evans and Ledbetter later received $4533.36 and $3313.39 in compensation.  (CTI)  [11/07]

On Aug 2, 1942, a teenager named Jose Diaz was found murdered near the Sleepy Lagoon reservoir in southeast Los Angeles.  The reservoir was frequented by Chicanos (Mexican Americans) who were excluded from public pools.  As a result of apparent prejudice and press hysteria, police arrested 600 Latinos in connection with the murders.  Twenty-two Latinos (mostly Chicanos) were indicted for the murders and tried before an all white jury.  The defendants were not allowed to sit near or speak with their attorneys during trial.

Three of the defendants were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison; nine were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to five years-to-life, five were convicted of assault and released for time served, and five were acquitted.  In October, 1944, the Court of Appeal of the State of California unanimously reversed the convictions, finding that there was no evidence linking the defendants with the crime.  (Wikipedia) (Google)  [4/08]

In 1978, eighteen-year-old Tony Cooks was accused of murdering John Franklin Gould.  Gould, 42, had been accosted by three black teenagers one evening while he and his wife walked down a street near their Paramount apartment. Gould was beaten, stabbed, and shot.  Gould’s wife told police that the assailant was “a light-skinned black.” Police showed her a photo-lineup in which Cooks was the only light-skinned black, and she told police, “I can’t be positive, but I think that’s him.”  However, at trial, Gould’s wife would positively identify Cooks.

Another witness, Helen Foster, who said she saw the nighttime crime 177 feet from her apartment window, identified Cooks as one of the assailants.  Two days after Cooks’ arrest, a 14-year-old youth was also arrested after he confessed to his involvement in the crime; the youth then accused Cooks as also being a participant in the crime.  Based on these identifications, Cooks was indicted for murder.

Cooks’ first trial ended up in a hung jury; his second trial ended in a mistrial; his third trial ended in a hung jury. Finally, at his fourth trial, in 1981, Cooks was convicted of Gould’s murder. However, the trial judge expressed skepticism about the eyewitness identifications and overturned the conviction.  The prosecutor appealed the judge’s decision and an appellate court reinstated the conviction.  The judge, forced to pronounce sentence, ordered Cooks to prison for sixteen years to life, but freed him on $5,000 bond pending appeal.  On appeal Cooks won the right to a fifth trial.

In 1986, at Cooks’ fifth trial, it was revealed that the 14 year-old eyewitness against Cooks had told his probation officer that his testimony was a “lie” he made up in order to satisfy a persistent detective who would not take "no" for an answer.  The fifth trial jury voted to acquit Cooks.  (Ramsey Dissertation)  [10/07]

Mikes was convicted of beating to death 76-year-old Harold Hansen.  Hansen was found dead on March 10, 1980 in the basement of his Long Beach fix-it shop.  The pockets of his clothing had been turned inside out.  The shop, which was located on the main floor of the building, had been burglarized.

Near Hansen's body,  investigators found three chrome posts--a three-foot post, a six-foot post, and a "turnstile" post--all of which constituted portions of a disassembled turnstile unit.  Hansen had purchased the turnstile at a hardware store's going out-of-business sale, approximately four months prior to his death. The investigators determined that the assailant used the three-foot post to murder Hansen.

The government's case against Mikes rested exclusively upon the fact that his fingerprints were among those found on the posts that lay adjacent to the victim's body.  Mikes' counsel failed to present alibi witnesses. His conviction was vacated due to insufficient evidence.  Mikes' release was delayed four months waiting for the DA's unsuccessful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Mikes served 7 years of a 25 years to life sentence.  (Google)  [4/08]

Patricia Gordy Wright was convicted in 1999 of the 1981 murder of her ex-husband, Willie Jerome Scott. Jerome was found stabbed to death in his motor home while it was parked in a bad area in downtown Los Angeles. Jerome’s homosexual lifestyle led to the dissolution of the couple’s marriage. It also led him to some unsavory partners and placed him in some dangerous situations. No physical or forensic evidence connects Wright to the crime.

Prior to Wright’s arrest, there were three previous suspects in the case. Police were unable to locate Jerome’s gay-lover or the male prostitute he was last seen with. In 1995, Wright’s brother, Larry, who was angry at his sister, pointed a finger at her and at Larry Slaughter, a family friend.  Two years later, Wright was arrested based on her brother's statement.  However, after being taken before Judge Lance Ito, she was released for lack of evidence.  Two weeks later, she was again arrested and taken before a different judge.  The police claimed to have a taped statement from Slaughter in which he claimed he was hired by Wright to murder Jerome for $25,000.  Without hearing the tape, this judge decided there was sufficient evidence to hold her.  Wright's attorney later demanded to hear the tape, but police claimed the tape was lost.  Slaughter later claimed that police taped him giving them them a statement, but in the statement he told them he knew nothing about the murder and did not know what they were talking about.

At trial, Slaughter did not testify, but a detective gave hearsay testimony as to his incriminating statements against Wright that were supposedly on the "lost" tape.  Wright's brother, Larry, also testified and stated that he lied in his statement to police, that he knew nothing about Jerome's murder, and that Wright never made any admissions to him about it.  However, a detective gave testimony about being present when Larry gave his statement.

To establish a motive, the state presented the testimony of an insurance agent who “remembered” selling Wright life insurance on her husband some 20 years before. The testimony had to be videotaped, as the agent, then 83, was confined to a nursing facility because of his Alzheimer’s disease.  Wright's attorney had no opportunity to cross-examine the agent.  Since her conviction, Wright has gathered evidence that largely refutes the life insurance claim.  Besides her own wrongful conviction, Wright also believes that Slaughter was wrongly convicted at his separate trial.  (JD38 p3)  [3/08]

In 1983, a mentally unbalanced woman named Judy Johnson enrolled her two-year-old son, Matthew, in the McMartin Preschool.  She became obsessed with Matthew's rectal problems and began thinking they were a result of sexual abuse.  Soon Judy was making accusations against Ray Buckey, 28, the only male who worked at the school and who was the grandson of Virginia McMartin, 79, the school's founder.  Matthew denied abuse at first, but soon Judy was making more accusations against Ray based on what Matthew allegedly said.

The police obtained a list of all children who ever attended the school and began questioning parents.  They asked them to question their children.  The police later encouraged parents to bring their children to abuse counselors who encouraged children using anatomically correct dolls to change from their alleged natural state of denial to giving details of abuse.

Reports of abuse snowballed and soon the entire staff of the preschool was indicted and arrested, including Ray Buckey, his mother Peggy, his sister Peggy Ann, his grandmother Virginia, and 3 female teachers.  They were charged with 208 counts of child abuse and except for Virginia McMartin, all were denied bail.  The original accuser soon disintegrated.  Her husband left her, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and she died of alcoholism.

At a preliminary hearing lasting 19 months, the prosecution claimed to have solid evidence of abuse—hundreds of photographs of the anuses and vaginas of the children, but no one could quite see what the expert medical interpreter did.  Even the three medical doctors for the prosecution could not agree on what they saw.  Many children told wild tales that could not possibly be true.  The prosecutors even began to break ranks.  Prosecutor Glenn Stevens resigned, claiming that they were putting seven innocent people through an ordeal and he wanted no further part in it.  Another member of the original team, Christine Johnson, also asked to be removed.  At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, charges were dropped against all defendants for lack of evidence except for Ray and his mother, Peggy Buckey.

To get a change of venue, the defense attorneys commissioned an opinion survey.  An astounding 97.5 percent of the people in the area believed the defendants were guilty, one of the highest figures of prejudice ever recorded in a poll.  Nevertheless, the change of venue motion was denied.

Jury selection for the trial began in April 1987, almost 4 years after the initial accusation.  In testifying about abuse, using photographs, a so-called medical expert pointed out suspect "white tissue," which turned out to be reflections of light on the photographs.  A child abuse investigator could name no credentials or training she had but was only a grant writer.  The trial lasted 28 months even though the judge began striking defense witnesses at the end because only one alternate juror remained, raising the possibility of a mistrial.

In Jan 1990, the jury hung on 13 counts (all against Ray) but acquitted both Ray and Peggy of the remaining charges.  Five months later, another trial began against Ray, but the jury in it became deadlocked as well and charges were dismissed.  After 7 years the McMartin case was the longest and most expensive legal proceeding in American history.  It had cost the community almost $16 million, and resulted in no convictions.  (CrimeLibrary)  [6/05]

Titus Lee Brown, Jr. was convicted of the stabbing murder of Israel Guzman Rangel.  The murder occurred in a South-Central Los Angeles parking lot.  The chief prosecution witness was Ricardo Pimental Baldavinos.  Pimental testified that he saw Guzman being attacked by two men. Pimental drew his unloaded gun and approached the assailants in an attempt to scare them away. Presented with a series of photo lineups a few days later, he identified Brown as the killer. However, Pimental's identification was weak: The incident occurred at night; Pimental had never seen the assailant before; he only saw the assailant briefly, though his estimates of time varied from "a couple of seconds" to "five minutes"; he had been drinking earlier in the evening; he could not recall whether the assailant had facial hair; when first contacted by the police, Pimental denied any knowledge of the incident; and Pimental failed to identify Brown's photo when presented in a photo lineup at trial.

The prosecution argued that robbery was the motive behind the stabbing.  Although there was no eyewitness testimony that Guzman had been robbed, the prosecution offered the testimony of Detective J. D. Furr, a police officer who investigated the crime. Furr offered his expert opinion that Guzman had been killed during a robbery.  Furr testified that his opinion was based on an examination of the scene of the crime, a ring found on the ground, interviews with the victim's family, and the fact that the victim's wallet and gold chains, which Furr believed the victim had been wearing on the night he was killed, were not found.

Some days after the jury returned its verdict, the prosecutor revealed to the trial court that the victim's allegedly missing wallet and gold chains had been given to Guzman's next of kin by hospital personnel, who presumably had discovered them on Guzman's person. The prosecutor had known this fact before trial, but did not inform defense counsel. Nor did she inform Detective Furr, whose expert opinion rested on the absence of those items.  Given the lack of robbery as an apparent motive, it seems likely that Guzman's killer harbored some grievance against him.  Without evidence that Brown even knew Guzman much less had a grievance against him, it seems doubtful that a jury would have convicted him solely on Pimental's weak identification of Brown.

The trial court found that the prosecutor's actions constituted prosecutorial misconduct. It, however, denied defense counsel's motion for a new trial and instead reduced the conviction from first to second-degree murder. Even though the court felt sure that the jury had convicted based on a felony murder theory, it felt there was sufficient evidence to convict Brown of second-degree murder.

The California Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, though it condemned the prosecutor's actions; the state supreme court not only refused to take Brown's side, it ordered the lower court's opinion "depublished", so as to spare the prosecutor, Wendy Widlus, any embarrassment. The case had to go to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before Brown received a new trial.  No information could be found on whether Brown was retried.  However, the Northwestern Law School website lists Brown as an exonerated person.  (Brown v. Borg) (Google)  [5/08]

Jesus Avila was convicted of attempted murder in 1990 in the shooting of Demetrius Kidd.  The shooting occurred at a baby shower gathering in Ham Park.  Jesus' original lawyer, George Denny, became convinced that Jesus’ brother, Ernesto, was the real shooter, after Ernesto apparently confessed to him.  But Denny never told anyone because he represented Ernesto in another matter and believed that he could not implicate him -- even if doing so might help clear Jesus.  While Denny wrestled with this dilemma, Ernesto and the Avila family gambled.  Rather than come forward and testify for his brother at the trial, Ernesto hoped that Jesus would win his freedom anyway.  "We thought Jesus would be acquitted and Ernesto would not have to go to jail either," said Christine Avila, their mother.

Denny withdrew from the case, citing an unspecified conflict of interest.  However, he never shared with Jesus’ new lawyer information he had on why Ernesto was the real shooter.  When police arrived at the shooting, Ernesto had fled.  Witnesses there identified Jesus as the person who most looked like the shooter.  At trial, Jesus’ new lawyer, presented witnesses who placed Jesus on the opposite side of the park at the time of the shooting.  Some remember him hitting the ground when shots were fired.  However, the prosecution witnesses prevailed.

On appeal in 1992, a judge heard sworn testimony that Ernesto was the guilty party, both from Ernesto and several other witnesses.  However, the judge declined to order a new trial for Jesus, saying later that he did not find Ernesto's admissions credible.  Eventually, however, Jesus was able to appeal to the federal Ninth Circuit Court, which overturned his conviction in July 2002.  (LA Times)  [10/07]

Tito David Valdez, Jr. and his father, Tito David Valdez, Sr., were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder.  Valdez Jr. produced a Norwalk cable TV show called "Hollywood Haze" featuring a freewheeling mixture of music videos and interviews with partying teen-agers and rap musicians. Most footage focused on teen-age girls dancing at underground parties and nightclubs.

Valdez had hired a 13-year-old Pico Rivera girl who said she was 16.  She said Valdez had brought her to his Downey home and raped her in his room while his father and brother watched television downstairs.  After the girl brought rape charges against Valdez, he and his father allegedly conspired to kill her.  They allegedly solicited someone to murder her.  Evidence has surfaced that the wiretapped tape conversation played to the jury was an edited, altered version.  Secondly, the jury was never told that the star witness for the prosecution, was a paid FBI informant and had a prior criminal record.  (Valdez' Story) (Google)  [4/08]

Kindle was convicted of the armed robbery of an Office Depot store where he worked as a janitor.  The store was located on South Figueroa Ave.  A thief had robbed it of $15,000 in cash and $7,000 in checks.  Following the robbery, Kindle continued to work at the store for seven weeks without his fellow employees pointing a finger at him.  After police detained him in the store, letting everyone know he was a suspect, five employees identified him as the robber from a police photo lineup.  At trial the prosecution presented a “things to do” list that Kindle says he compiled during a training session on working as a janitor.  The prosecution contended the list was a “recipe for robbery.”  Judge Lance Ito refused to order a retrial after learning that items on the list were janitorial tips.

An appeals court ordered a new trial because Kindle's counsel failed to introduce an expert on witness IDs.  An analysis was performed on a videotape of the robbery, which showed that the perpetrator was 6’6” tall.  Kindle was only 6’ tall.  The DA declined to retry the case.  Kindle served 2 years of a 70 years to life sentence given under the three strikes law.

Catalan was charged with the murder of 16-year-old Martha Puebla.  Puebla had testified against Catalan’s brother in another case.  Catalan insisted that he was watching the Los Angeles Dodgers with his six-year-old daughter at the stadium minutes before Puebla was killed about 20 miles north of the stadium.  He said he had ticket stubs from the game and testimony from his family.  However, police said that they had a witness who placed Catalan at the scene of the crime.

Catalan’s attorney, Todd Melnik, subpoenaed the Dodgers and Fox Networks, who owned the team, to scan videotape of the televised baseball game and footage from its “Dodger Vision” cameras.  Some of the videotapes showed where Catalan was sitting but Melnik could not make him out.  Melnik later learned that HBO had been at the stadium the night of the killing to tape an episode of the TV show “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”  The attorney found what he was looking for in footage that had not made the final cut.  “I got to one of the scenes, and there is my client sitting in a corner of the frame eating a hot dog with his daughter,” Melnik said.  “I nearly jumped out of my chair and said, ‘There he is!’”

The tapes had time codes that allowed Melnik to find out exactly when Catalan was at the ballpark.  Melnik also obtained cell phone records that placed his client near the stadium later that night, about 20 minutes before the murder.  The attorney said it would have been impossible for Catalan to get out of the parking lot, change vehicles and clothing, and play with his daughter as well as kill Puebla during that span.

Catalan, who could have been sentenced to death had he been convicted of murder, was released after 5 1/2 months of imprisonment because a judge ruled there was no evidence with which to try him.  (CBS)  [7/07]

Jerry Bigelow and fellow inmate Michael Ramadanovic had escaped from a Canadian jail and were hitchhiking their way south through California.  In Sacramento, a driver, John Cherry, picked them up and ended up dead.  Both Bigelow and Ramadanovic were arrested.  In exchange for immunity from the death penalty, Ramadanovic agreed to testify that Bigelow had shot the victim.  Bigelow also confessed to the crime after he was told he would receive a lesser sentence in return for his confession.  He did not.  At trial, Bigelow acted as his own attorney and was convicted and sentenced to death.  In 1983 his conviction was overturned for inadequate representation of counsel.

At his 1988 retrial, Bigelow’s defense argued that Ramadanovic had committed the murder while Bigelow was intoxicated and sleeping in the back seat of the car.  The defense presented witnesses who testified that Ramadanovic had boasted about the killing and took sole responsibility.  Evidence was also presented that Bigelow had, in the past, confessed to crimes that he had not committed.  The jury returned a verdict of “not guilty.”  The judge, however, declared a mistrial because of some irregularities in the verdict forms.  On appeal, an appeals court ordered the trial court to accept the jury’s verdict and Bigelow was released.  (NL) (TWM) (ISI)  [3/07]

Robert Rubane Diaz was sentenced to death for the murders of 12 hospital patients.  In early 1981, Community Hospital of the Valleys in Perris, California experienced an abnormally large number of deaths among its most elderly patients.  To gather evidence, the coroner exhumed or intercepted all the patients who had recently died and he collected tissue samples from them.  The coroner found that 11 patients had a supposedly lethal level of the heart drug lidocaine in their system.  Investigators focused on Diaz, a male nurse, who worked at the hospital during many of the deaths.  They also investigated his previous employment and came up with a 12th patient from another hospital whose exhumed body showed a supposedly lethal level of lidocaine.

High levels of lidocaine were not necessarily indicative of poisoning as hospital staff used the popular drug liberally on its patients.  There was no direct evidence against Diaz.  No one had seen him inject a patient with a fatal dose of anything.  He had no apparent motive to kill anyone.  An alleged “smoking gun” syringe filled with an especially high solution of lidocaine was found hidden in the Valleys hospital 7 months after it closed.  It fit the prosecution’s theory of how the alleged murders occurred.  However, it appears to have been planted.

After Diaz’ arrest, investigators from the public defender’s office found that the hospital’s care was abominable.  It was not unusual for there to be a Code Blue alert every night, and not just during Diaz’ employment there.  Employees were often unable to read heart monitors and other basic equipment.  Doctors often failed to respond to emergencies.  During the deaths Diaz reportedly blamed the doctors who showed up late.  Diaz may have served as a fall guy for the doctors.

Following standard procedures, Diaz’ defense would be extraordinarily costly to the cash strapped public defender’s office.  To save money, a new administrator fired all the investigators and implemented a budget defense for Diaz.  The reasoning seemed to be, “Better to sacrifice one suspected serial killer, than to risk harming the mass of the office’s clients.”  At trial, Diaz’ defense took the unusual tactic of saving money for itself and the state by presenting its case before a judge rather than a jury.  This tactic was unusual because a judge would likely feel political pressure to convict a suspected serial killer.  Most jurors would not likely feel as much pressure, and a single unconvinced juror could stop a conviction.

The judge convicted Diaz of 12 counts of first-degree murder.  At sentencing, the defense failed to present character witnesses.  It could at least have had each of Diaz’ five children state, “Don’t kill my Daddy.”  The defense’s short plea for mercy was that Diaz had saved the state a considerable amount of money.  The judge was not impressed and sentenced Diaz to die, ironically by lethal injection.

Following Diaz’ conviction, his appeal attorneys located, in 1989, a study of 140 lidocaine patients done by the Coroner’s Office of Nassau County, NY.  The study found that 24 of the patients had similar levels of lidocaine as Diaz’ alleged victims, but that none of the 24 were suspected of being poisoned.  The study concluded that there is a great difference in the rate at which different patients metabolize lidocaine.  The assumption that Diaz’ alleged victims died of lidocaine poisoning appears unfounded.  Diaz has since exhausted his state appeals, but in 1998 a federal judge granted him an evidentiary hearing.  (AJ)

Atkins was convicted of the robbery and rape of a clerk in Lake Elsinore shoe store.  The victim saw his face on a wanted poster for another crime, just before she identified him in a lineup.  Atkins claimed he had never been to or heard of the city of Lake Elsinore until he was charged.  At trial, a sheriff’s deputy, Danny Miller, submitted a statement attributed to a man named Eric Ingram, saying that he knew Atkins to be a gang member and had seen Atkins in Lake Elsinore at the time of the crime.  Years later, an investigator tracked down Ingram who signed a sworn statement saying he did not know Atkins and had not told Miller that he had seen Atkins in the vicinity of the crime scene.

Atkins served 12 years of a 45-year sentence before DNA tests exonerated him of the crime in 2000.  In 2007, a jury awarded Atkins $2 million.  It also filled out a special verdict form stating that Miller had fabricated and suppressed evidence.  Since Miller currently works for the FBI, the National Innocence Network has asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate him. (IP066) (LA Times)  [10/07]

Killian was convicted of murdering coin collector Edward Davies, shooting his wife, Grace (attempted murder), conspiracy, burglary, robbery, and grand theft.  After being initially charged, the charges were soon dropped.  Later when a repeat felon named Gary Masse was convicted of the shootings, he named Killian as an accomplice as well as another person, Stephen DeSantis, apparently to deflect attention from his wife.  Killian was convicted.

In the early 1990s, lawyers for DeSantis forced prosecutors to turn over piles of documents, including several that pertained to her case.  One was a secret letter, written by Masse to the prosecutor, in which he emphasized that he had “lied [his] ass off on the stand” to help convict Killian; another was a letter from prosecutors supporting a sentence reduction for Masse because of his cooperation on the case.  The letters gave Killian grounds for appeal.  In addition, Killian got major financial help from Joyce Ride, the mother of astronaut Sally Ride.  Killian served 18 years of a 32 years to life sentence.  After her release, Killian founded the Action Committee for Women in Prison.  (Ninth Circuit Court)  [7/05]

Jackson was convicted of the robbery and murder of Robert Hoke, a gas station attendant.  A police informant, Victor Thomas, reported the day after the murder that Jackson had confessed to committing the crime with another man, Gilbert Andrews.  Thomas' identification of Jackson was at odds with the description of either assailant given by several witnesses and contrary to the statement of another witness who, after viewing a photo lineup, positively excluded Jackson.  After Jackson’s arrest, the victim’s wife incorrectly identified Jackson’s wallet as belonging to her husband.

Jackson was sentenced to prison on April 8, 1974.  During his incarceration, anothe