[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., FLA., OHIO, NEB., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 23




PENNSYLVANIA:

Castille erred in reviewing death-penalty case


The decision to seek the death penalty is one of the most profound 
responsibilities entrusted to any district attorney. Seeking a punishment that 
ends the life of a human being, even when that person is accused of having 
committed murder, is a solemn and sobering decision that cannot be taken 
lightly.

In the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, when I led it, the decision to 
seek a death-penalty sentence was the result of an intensive process, but the 
final decision was mine alone.

In an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case, Williams v. Pennsylvania, a former 
district attorney argues that his decision to seek capital punishment was an 
administrative act that did not bias his later adjudication of the case while 
on the state Supreme Court. My experience suggests otherwise.

Williams v. Pennsylvania will be heard on Monday, in 1 of the 1st cases to be 
argued without the presence of Justice Antonin Scalia. The case addresses the 
refusal of Ronald Castille, the former chief justice of the Pennsylvania 
Supreme Court, to recuse himself from appellate review of the case of Terrance 
Williams, a death-row prisoner.

Before he was elected to the state Supreme Court, Castille was the district 
attorney of Philadelphia, and in that capacity he sought a death sentence 
against Williams, which he authorized in a handwritten note. Castille led the 
city's District Attorney's Office during the trial, capital sentencing, 
post-trial, and direct appeal proceedings in Williams' case. When he ran for 
election to the state Supreme Court, The Inquirer reported that Castille 
proclaimed that he "sent 45 people to death row." Among them was Williams.

However, in 2012, a state court found that the District Attorney's Office under 
Castille's leadership committed prosecutorial misconduct in Williams' case, 
illegally withholding important mitigating evidence from Williams' defense 
lawyer. A new sentencing hearing was ordered.

When the current district attorney of Philadelphia appealed the decision, it 
went to the state Supreme Court, where Castille had become chief justice. 
Williams' attorneys requested that the chief justice recuse himself, or put the 
question of his recusal to the full court. Castille refused to do either and 
remained on the bench in consideration of the case, despite the fact that it 
involved an accusation of misconduct against his former office and the reversal 
of a death sentence he personally authorized as district attorney.

Many former prosecutors, former judges, legal ethicists, and others share my 
concern about this case.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Castille argue that the decision to seek 
the death penalty against Williams was purely ministerial, that Castille had no 
knowledge of the facts of the case, and that therefore he could review the 
death sentence with no preconceived feelings or opinions about the case.

Pennsylvania and Castille also argue that Castille's supervisory role over the 
prosecutor who committed misconduct in Williams' case did not affect his 
ability to be fair when judging the case. My experiences as the Los Angeles 
County district attorney for 8 years and as chief deputy district attorney for 
4 years make it clear to me that these arguments hold no water.

I believe that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Castille to fairly 
review the lower court's decision that a prosecutor he supervised committed 
misconduct. A district attorney is responsible for the professional conduct of 
his or her deputies. Misconduct of 1 deputy reflects on the integrity of the 
office as a whole, and accusations of misconduct implicate problems with 
leadership.

The lower court's finding in Williams' case that a deputy committed misconduct 
indicated failings in Castille's leadership that I do not believe he would be 
able to review and consider impartially.

A judge must always "hold the balance" in our legal system in order for the 
public to retain its confidence and trust in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court 
should send Williams' case back for consideration by a court that does not 
include Castille.

(source: Gil Garcetti served 32 years in the Los Angeles District Attorney's 
Office, including 12 years as the district attorney ---- philly.com)






FLORIDA:

Juries must be unanimous on death sentences


Florida's death penalty sentencing law is on track to get significantly better.

Just not good enough.

When the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 12 struck down Florida's capital sentencing 
system because it gives juries too little weight, the Legislature was forced to 
amend the law in order for executions to resume in the state. Although the 
court's ruling in Hurst v. Florida didn't address the issue, bills in the House 
and Senate both seek to change the number of jurors required to agree on a 
death sentence.

It's a long overdue overhaul. Florida is 1 of just 3 states, along with Alabama 
and Delaware, that do not require a jury be unanimous on recommending the death 
penalty. However, Florida stands alone in allowing a simple majority of jurors 
(7) to issue a death sentence (Alabama requires a supermajority of jurors (10); 
Delaware calls for jurors to unanimously agree on whether the defendant is 
eligible for the death penalty, but their sentencing recommendation can be 
split).

Florida's unique position is both constitutionally and morally suspect, as it 
leaves so much room for doubt when handing down the ultimate penalty. Indeed, 
the Florida Supreme Court has cited legal precedent and the state's "outlier 
status" in urging the Legislature to re-examine the state's capital sentencing 
statute, so as to bring Florida "closer to the mainstream of capital sentencing 
states in regard to jury findings."

Hurst added urgency to that move. A bill in the Florida Senate would change the 
law to require jurors be unanimous in both finding a defendant eligible for the 
death penalty and in recommending the sentence be imposed. The original version 
of a similar bill filed in the House diverged from the Senate measure on the 
key issue of unanimity by requiring a supermajority of nine jurors to recommend 
a death sentence.

Tuesday, however, the House bill was amended to bump that supermajority up to 
10 jurors, putting Florida's law on par with Alabama's. Some legal and 
political observers believe that is setting the stage for a compromise between 
the 2 chambers, and that the Senate bill eventually will abandon jury unanimity 
and adopt the House supermajority of 10.

Although that's an improvement to the current system, it still allows 
sentencing to proceed despite substantial doubt. There must be the highest 
level of certainty attainable when sentencing a convict to death, for a mistake 
cannot be undone if an innocent person is executed.

To be sure, adopting unanimity would lead to fewer death sentences. A study by 
the Harvard Law School found that requiring jury unanimity in Florida, Alabama, 
and Delaware would have caused a death sentences over the last 5 years to drop 
from 117 to 26.

The goal, however, should not be to put as many convicts on death row as 
possible. It should be to mete out "eye for an eye" justice to those most 
deserving of it - while ensuring the innocent are not wrongly convicted. To 
that end, the results of a recent Tampa Bay Times review of more than 450 death 
penalty cases dating back decades found that prisoners who were sentenced to 
death based on non-unanimous jury recommendations were far more likely to have 
their cases overturned on direct appeal, or to be ultimately acquitted.

The newspaper noted that Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations.

That statistic alone demands a thorough review of the state's judicial system. 
The Legislature, however, can install a powerful check against miscarriages of 
justice by requiring jury unanimity on death sentences, just as 29 other states 
have.

(source: Editorial Board, Panama City News-Herald)

**************

Judge: Death sentence still in play


A Brevard judge said the death penalty remains in play for Anthony Welch and 
denied the convicted killer's motion to be sentenced to life in prison.

A man who used a souvenir samurai sword to stab and hack his 2 neighbors to 
death before going on a date, will be back in court this morning seeking a life 
sentence for his crimes.

Anthony Welch was 22 years old when he murdered Suntree couple Rufus and Kyoko 
Johnson, his former next-door neighbors. According to reports, Welch tied up 
the couple -- both in their 60s -- tried to extort money, tortured and killed 
them.

Welch pleaded guilty in 2005 to the double murder and was sentenced to death. 
But the Florida Supreme Court reversed the sentence in 2008 citing an error by 
his trial judge made during jury selection in the penalty phase. Welch has been 
waiting for a re-sentencing trial ever since.

But just last month the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida's death penalty 
is unconstitutional. The court said it was a violation of the sixth amendment 
to have the judge and not a jury determine the "aggravating circumstances" or 
facts that lead to a sentence of death.

This morning, Welch's attorney -- Chief Assistant Public Defender Michael 
Pirolo -- will ask the court to sentence Welch to the only sentence on the 
table right now: life in prison.

Last week, Judge James Earp made a similar ruling in the state's case against 
William Woodward but the state promptly appealed his ruling with the 5th 
District Court of Appeals.

(source: Florida Today)

*************

Lingering questions should end death penalty in Florida----Senate temporarily 
postpones medical marijuana expansion bill


Legislation that the Florida House of Representatives approved last week cures 
what the U.S. Supreme Court specifically found wrong with Florida's death 
penalty, but Rick Scott shouldn't plan on signing any more death warrants soon, 
if ever.

6 large questions linger.

Will the Supreme Court uphold it?

The court did not say, in "Hurst v. Florida," whether a jury could recommend 
death by less than a unanimous vote. The House bill would allow it with only 10 
votes out of 12.

What will it cost?

Probably a lot less than Florida has been spending, provided there are fewer 
death sentences. No one knows.

What happens to the 389 people on death row?

That's for the state Supreme Court to say. Washington passed the buck to 
Tallahassee to decide whether abridging Timothy Hurst's right to trial by jury 
was, as the state contends, "harmless error." If the Florida court finds that 
his and other sentences must be overturned, it's no sure thing that the new 
trial process could be applied retroactively.

Is it what the voters want?

That's the big question: The answer seems to be no.

Then why do it?

Because legislators care a lot more about the death penalty than the public 
does.

Unless a new poll is far-out wrong, there has been an upheaval in public 
opinion on the issue of the death penalty for murder.

In a survey of 879 Florida voters conducted Feb. 3-4, only 35 % favored 
execution over 3 alternatives.

More than 1/2 preferred life without parole, especially if the killers were 
made to work in prison and pay restitution to victims' families. There was even 
some support - 9 % - for parole after 40 years, which Florida does not allow.

Significantly, more than three of every 4 voters said they would still vote for 
a candidate of their party with whom they agreed on other issues even if they 
differed over the death penalty.

Republicans were more in favor of executions than Democrats or independents 
were, but still by less than a majority.

Only 2 % of all voters said the death penalty is the issue that matters most to 
them.

These findings are in a survey by Public Policy Polling, of Charlotte, North 
Carolina. It was commissioned by the Florida Center for Capital Representation 
at the Florida International University School of Law.

The FIU center organized the appeal on behalf of Timothy Hurst, a killer from 
Pensacola, that evoked the 8-1 decision holding Florida's trial process 
unconstitutional. Florida has had the judge rather than the jury decide whether 
aggravating factors call for death instead of a life sentence.

During oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked in effect whether the court 
should also require a unanimous jury recommendation for death. But the majority 
opinion, which she wrote, didn't address that issue. Only Alabama and Delaware 
(whose death penalty is in disuse) allow 10-2 death recommendations.

Nearly half the 296 death sentence appeals decided by the Florida Supreme Court 
from 2000 through 2012 involved jury recommendations of 9-3, 8-4, or 7-5. 
(Hurst's also was 7-5) Moreover, a jury's vote for life would now be binding on 
the judge, who could still overrule a death recommendation.

With Justice Antonin Scalia???s seat vacant on a court where 2 other justices 
are on record against the death penalty under all circumstances, Florida will 
be challenging the odds if the final bill allows 10-2 death recommendations. 
The version awaiting debate in the Senate requires unanimity: the choice of 73 
% of the respondents in that poll. The Senate would be prudent to insist on it.

It's regrettable that Florida isn't taking the "Hurst" decision as an 
opportunity to join the 19 states without the death penalty. 6 - Connecticut, 
Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey and New York - have repealed it just 
since 2007.

Most legislators, I suspect, realize that the death penalty costs much more to 
carry out than imprisonment for life, that it's still imposed arbitrarily, that 
it's prone to executing the innocent, that it has no deterrent value, and that 
it isn't necessary to protect society. But they still vote for it.

When the Supreme Court overturned capital punishment nationwide in 1972, there 
were 91 people awaiting execution in Florida. They were resentenced to life 
without parole under a law the Legislature had passed earlier that year in 
anticipation of such a ruling. Subsequently, 3 were completely exonerated and 
released from prison. There have been 22 more death row exonerations since 
then, including a prisoner who died of cancer before DNA testing established 
his innocence.

The 1972 resentencing law is still on the books and could be used to spare 
Florida the enormous expense and uncertain legal prospects of trying to hold 
new sentencing hearings for nearly 400 people. It would apply even if the 
Legislature failed to rewrite what the Supreme Court found unconstitutional.

But the lawmakers are under heavy pressure from prosecutors, for whom the death 
penalty is an effective tool to extract plea bargains and turn co-defendants 
into state witnesses.

That function is one of the reasons why the death penalty is still as random as 
being struck by lightning, as Justice Potter Stewart put it in 1972 and Justice 
Stephen Breyer reiterated last year.

And, yes, there's a caveat to those poll numbers that seem to say the public 
doesn't care about what legislators do with the death penalty. The questions 
posed to those 879 Florida voters weren't loaded. A campaign attack ad would 
be. Remember Willie Horton?

At least there were 20 House members - all Democrats - willing to take that 
risk this time. When the Legislature re-enacted capital punishment in 1972, 
only 3 of the 160 legislators dared to vote no.

(source: Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of the newspaper formerly 
known as the St. Petersburg Times. He lives in suburban Asheville, North 
Carolina----floridapolitics.com)






OHIO:

Death-row experience interweaves lives of priest, man he helped free


When Father Neil Kokoothe first met Joseph D'Ambrosio on Ohio's death row in 
December 1998, he intended to describe the funeral of the condemned man's 
mother.

D'Ambrosio would not listen, however. Another inmate had told him the priest 
had been a lawyer before ordination. Now, D'Ambrosio pleaded for help with his 
case.

"It's God's providence," D'Ambrosio, a lifelong Catholic, said recently of 
Father Kokoothe's unexpected entrance into his life.

A 3-judge panel had convicted D'Ambrosio of murder in 1989 after a trial that 
lasted less than 3 days. No forensic evidence linked him to the crime and 
D'Ambrosio insisted he had not killed teenager Anthony Klann.

Father Kokoothe hesitated to help.

"My ministry on death row was never about getting involved in their cases," he 
said. "I simply wanted to companion some men who had been sentenced to death."

He told D'Ambrosio he did not have time to read thousands of pages of 
transcripts and appellate work. Father Kokoothe was stunned when the convict 
informed him that his capital case filled a single volume.

The priest read it, spotting problems in the only witness account that placed 
D'Ambrosio at the crime scene. Father Kokoothe knew, for example, that it was 
impossible for the victim to scream for mercy with gaping stab wounds in his 
trachea. Not only was the priest a lawyer, but he also had worked as a 
registered nurse for 15 years.

Father Kokoothe visited D'Ambrosio a few weeks later. He promised to 
investigate -- but only if the prisoner swore he had nothing to do with the 
murder. Then he added another condition.

"He looked me dead in the eye and said, 'One little deceit and I'm through with 
you!'" D'Ambrosio recalled.

Father Kokoothe said that some people ignore his background as an attorney and 
a nurse. They assume he believes anyone claiming to be innocent.

"I think just the opposite is the case," he said. "I want empirical proof that 
this is true."

For his part, D'Ambrosio longed to clear his name.

"He knew that a new trial and new evidence would win his freedom," Father 
Kokoothe said in an interview for Catholic News Service.

In his ensuing research, the priest learned that Klann, the only witness in a 
rape trial, had been slain before he could testify. The accused rapist was the 
same man who fingered D'Ambrosio for Klann's murder.

Father Kokoothe also discovered that the prosecution had withheld crucial 
evidence from D'Ambrosio's public defender.

The priest enlisted the aid of journalists who eventually publicized 
D'Ambrosio's story. Still, the years rolled by. Then another death-row inmate 
exhausted his appeals and he asked his spiritual adviser, a minister, to help 
D'Ambrosio instead. The pastor contacted a prestigious law firm and it agreed 
to work pro bono on D'Ambrosio's case.

Meanwhile, Father Kokoothe continued to support D'Ambrosio. The men are close 
in age, with both in their mid-50s, but the priest developed a paternal 
attitude toward the prisoner. Prior to a retrial, a judge ordered that 
D'Ambrosio be released on house arrest. Father Kokoothe worried it would be 
cruel to give D'Ambrosio a taste of freedom, however limited. If the case went 
against the defendant, he might return to death row within months. Father 
Kokoothe advised him to stay in the county jail.

D'Ambrosio rejected the suggestion.

"1 minute of freedom is worth it," he said. "I was living in a 6-foot-by-9-foot 
cell for 22 years!"

D'Ambrosio moved into a friend's apartment, leaving it only for medical 
appointments and meetings with his lawyers.

Then, during a pre-trial hearing, the prosecution revealed that it still had 
not shared all physical evidence with D'Ambrosio's defense team. A federal 
judge soon ordered D'Ambrosio's release, and she ruled that his conviction and 
sentence be expunged. He was exonerated Jan. 23, 2012.

Prosecutors appealed her decision. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to 
hear the case.

David Mills, a court-appointed attorney who ultimately ensured that D'Ambrosio 
was released and not retried, acknowledged Father Kokoothe's pivotal role years 
earlier.

"He essentially started everything in terms of overturning Joe's conviction," 
Mills said of the priest. "By meeting with Joe and really listening, he got the 
ball rolling."

As a free man, D'Ambrosio no longer needed an advocate, but his life had been 
on hold for 2 decades.

By that time, Father Kokoothe was pastor of St. Clarence Parish in North 
Olmsted. Many parishioners had corresponded with D'Ambrosio when he was in 
prison; some attended his court proceedings. Nobody objected when the parish 
hired the self-described jack-of-all-trades as a maintenance man.

Congregations of various religious denominations as well as groups opposed to 
capital punishment often invited D'Ambrosio and Father Kokoothe to relate their 
experience. When the two finally spoke at St. Clarence, parishioners packed the 
church. They presented D'Ambrosio with a watch engraved with the date of the 
Supreme Court decision that allowed him to get on with life.

"It's one of my most cherished things," D'Ambrosio said. "I've never felt more 
unconditional love than I have in this parish. This is my family."

In recent years, D'Ambrosio and Father Kokoothe addressed federal public 
defenders in Arizona and Idaho, the National Defense Investigators Association 
convention in San Diego and an anti-death penalty organization in London.

In this Year of Mercy, they will make several presentations.

Although he sometimes speaks alone, D'Ambrosio said they work best as a team.

"It's a brother-type relationship," D'Ambrosio said.

An incident last year illustrated this.

"Death row is not a good experience," Father Kokoothe said. "If it were me, 
there would come a time when I wanted to put it behind me, totally, and just 
move on."

He asked D'Ambrosio when he wanted to stop speaking about his ordeal.

Almost executed for a crime he did not commit, D'Ambrosio did not need to 
reflect before answering.

"Not until the death penalty is done," he said.

(source: Catholic News Service)






NEBRASKA:

Nebraska death penalty foes to launch statewide campaign


Nebraska death penalty opponents are launching a statewide campaign with a new 
name.

The group Retain a Just Nebraska will announce the next phase of its campaign 
Wednesday at the Capitol. The organization previously operated under the name 
Nebraskans for Public Safety.

Retain a Just Nebraska will ask voters to reject a proposal that would keep the 
death penalty legal in Nebraska. Lawmakers abolished capital punishment in May, 
but death penalty supporters responded with a petition drive that suspended the 
new law until voters decide the issue in the November general election.

Nebraska currently has 10 men on death row. Gov. Pete Ricketts has said the 
state will not pursue any executions until voters decide whether to keep the 
death penalty.

(source: KETV news)






CALIFORNIA:

Weird Secrecy Surrounds Questionable Orange County Death-Penalty Case


Having recently arrived from the gloomy, sun-starved section of San Quentin 
State Prison, Kenneth Clair wore a smile when he emerged inside Orange County's 
Central Courthouse. The inmate last visited the place when Ronald Reagan 
occupied the White House, the Soviet Union existed, nobody outside of Arkansas 
had heard of the Clintons and only a tiny portion of Americans owned 
cellphones. But his elation wasn't because he was avoiding the ultimate 
penal-code fate for 28 years or because a federal court last year overturned 
his death-penalty punishment after a special circumstances murder conviction. 
He was happy to see family members and supporters attending a hearing in 
Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Goethals' courtroom.

Clair's upbeat sentiment masked a brutal life story. Neglected as an infant in 
his native Louisiana, violently abused as a youngster, sent as a 17-year-old 
petty thief to the nation's most horrific adult penitentiary, where the daily 
norm included forcible sexual assaults, he'd hoped to start a new life by 
moving to California in 1983. Within a year, however, authorities charged the 
then-25-year-old homeless man with the attempted rape, robbery and murder of a 
Santa Ana babysitter at an alleged white supremacist's house. Though no 
physical evidence tied the dark-skinned African-American to the crime scene, 
and an eyewitness who saw the intruder at close range insisted the killer had 
been Caucasian, prosecutors succeeded in sending him to death row.

Never mind, too, that multiple other witnesses recanted anti-Clair statements, 
saying law-enforcement officials offered hidden incentives to utter 
pro-government testimony, according to court records reviewed by the Weekly. 
Also that police failed to seriously probe a possible connection to the rape of 
another nearby woman in the weeks before the killing. And that forensic 
scientists concluded the murderer's clothes would have been soaked in blood, 
but a woman who saw Clair shortly after the crime observed nothing unusual 
about his appearance. And that officials supposedly lost crime-scene evidence 
when defense lawyers asked to study it. And that upon learning of the 
behind-the-scenes hanky-panky, several jurors declared they would have voted 
not guilty had they been fully enlightened. In a sworn declaration, one member 
of the citizens' panel labeled herself disgusted she'd been hoodwinked by the 
Orange County district attorney's office (OCDA).

Fast forward to Feb. 19, when a sheriff's deputy pushed a wheelchair carrying 
the knee-injured Clair into Goethals' courtroom. Prison has taken its toll; he 
looks a decade older than his age, 56. A relative overcome with emotion asked 
if she could sit next to the handcuffed defendant at the defense table, but a 
bailiff shook his head no. For weeks, the judge understandably believed the 
hearing would require the mere technicality of resentencing Clair to a term of 
life in prison without the possibility for parole (LWOP).

But this case just can't escape controversy.

In an unusually secretive ruling in March 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for 
the Ninth Circuit found that Clair's trial attorney in 1987 provided 
"profoundly deficient" representation. The 3-judge panel then removed the death 
penalty, issued a protective order on involved lawyers and published an opinion 
devoid of key factual references that hindered readers' ability to tie the 
ruling to Clair. The matter slowly returned to Orange County, where it landed 
in Goethals' court for either a penalty-phase retrial or a rubberstamp LWOP 
determination.

What the hell was happening? The judge said, "It's difficult to imagine what's 
going on here."

The answer wasn't forthcoming, at least for the public. Scott Simmons, a 
high-ranking OCDA homicide prosecutor, and Clair's San Francisco-based 
appellate lawyer, John Grele, told Goethals they couldn't speak freely about 
the case in open court. For 17 minutes, they huddled in chambers. When they 
finished, the judge announced he'd learned "a little" more about the situation, 
but he didn't offer specifics.

What we did discover is there's an impasse. Simmons had hoped Grele would 
readily accept a non-contested downward departure from death to LWOP. But that 
outcome robs the penniless Clair of publicly provided legal counsel afforded to 
death-row inmates as he battles pending suspicious law-enforcement actions 
against him. Instead, to Simmons' irritation, Grele announced he wants Goethals 
to remove the special circumstances finding so his client would receive a term 
no worse than 25 years to life, which could mean he's already eligible for 
parole.

"This is more complicated than it initially appeared," observed the judge.

Lurking as a backdrop to the dispute is a huge, unsolved mystery. OCDA 
officials asserted for years that DNA recovered from the murdered babysitter, 
Linda Faye Rodgers, belonged to Clair, who, they claimed, attempted to rape 
her, too. But in 2008 and with the defendant having served 21 years on death 
row at that point, their version of reality crumbled. Advances in forensic 
science made a startling discovery: The DNA doesn't actually belong to Clair.

Fair-minded observers have gasped at the twist, but District Attorney Tony 
Rackauckas and his surrogates, Simmons and his homicide unit boss, Dan Wagner, 
stubbornly claim the news is irrelevant. Though the Ninth Circuit asserted 
there's a possibility Clair could be factually innocent, the local prosecutors 
say they remain positive of his guilt. To support that stance, they point 
chiefly to an informant's surreptitious recording of the defendant repeatedly 
proclaiming his innocence but also asking a person not to cooperate with police 
detectives investigating Rodgers' death.

Simmons knows the identity of the male tied to the DNA recovered from the 
victim's vagina, but he refuses to reveal it, explaining the individual was too 
young at the time of the killing to be guilty. He also blocked Grele's request 
to inspect the name under a protective order so that he could investigate if 
one of the person's older, DNA-sharing male relatives is the killer. To justify 
that concealment, the deputy DA declared privacy concerns supersede Clair's 
due-process rights, a position he took even when a state execution loomed.

The 1st issue Goethals plans to tackle is whether he has jurisdiction to grant 
the defense motion to strike the special circumstances verdict if he eventually 
determines that's the correct course. "I don't want to engage in a meaningless 
exercise," he said. Stating accuracy is more important than speed in the 
current scenario, the judge will study in-depth briefs from both sides. To 
ponder the next step in this bizarre case, he ordered the parties to return on 
March 18.

At the hearing's conclusion, Clair's relatives couldn't hide decades' worth of 
emotional scars as they slowly walked down a courthouse hallway with 3 
reporters in tow. They appreciated that C.J. Ford - an Orange County private 
investigator and expert in the case - accompanied them. In their minds, the 
OCDA cheated to steal an innocent, underprivileged man's freedom, and they 
weren't comfortable when Goethals conducted the powwow with the lawyers outside 
of their presence. They even lectured the court-appointed Grele, claiming he'd 
callously kept them in dark about his strategy for the session.

"After everything that has happened, I don't trust any of them," said Johnnie 
Mae Stokes, Clair's sister, who was on the verge of tears. She paused, 
distraught about her sibling's plight. "Why should I?"

(source: Orange County Weekly)