Marcos Bretón has this column in the Sacramento Bee on yesterday's atrocity.
Personally, I would join in the cheering of Newsom if I weren't haunted by the heinous details of unspeakable crimes committed by some of the men spared by Newsom's pen and his flair for the dramatic.
Justice Thurgood Marshall famously claimed that if only the American people knew the truth about capital punishment they would overwhelmingly oppose it. Bretón believes the information deficit runs the other direction.
But in 1996, Michael Lyons was murdered at the age of 8. And honestly, Lyons wasn't just murdered. To call what happened to Michael Lyons in a wooded area near Yuba City a murder is a misuse of the word. In truth, Michael Lyons was abducted, ravaged and tortured. His killer - an already convicted, violent sex offender named Robert Boyd Rhoades - did things to him that I cannot write here because they are too horrific.
The last time I wrote about Michael Lyons in 2012, I had long debates with my editors about what we could and could not share. My argument was this: That we in the media sanitize the crimes involving death row inmates by strictly hewing to industry norms of "good taste."
And by sanitizing these crimes, we give the public a distorted picture of death row inmates. To hear Gov. Newsom talk on Wednesday, one might have thought that death row was populated by men who could be played by Denzel Washington or Bradley Cooper in a movie.
I especially like this passage, which follows a description of the crimes against Michael Lyons that is as graphic as the Bee would let him print:
That's not even the worst of it. But when I gave a talk to a community group a few days after these words were published, an older woman approached me as I was leaving and scolded me for publishing such graphic details. They were "offensive," she said.
I wanted to scream at her, "Offensive? Yeah, they are very offensive. That is the point."
At times in my long tenure here at CJLF, I have hired law students or recent graduates who had been soaked in the pro-criminal bird bath of law school and had serious qualms about arguing in favor of capital sentences. The cure was to assign them a few cases where they had to learn the real facts, not the sanitized little blurbs we so often see. The reservations melted away as quickly as a pat of butter in a hot skillet.
So much opposition to capital punishment is squeamishness masquerading as morality.
Hopefully Mr. Rhoades will be placed in general population. I am certain that La Eme knows what to do.
Do you also tell your interns about cases like Vicente Benavides?:
“A Kern County Superior Court judge last week ordered that a 68-year-old former farmworker, Vicente Benavides Figueroa, be released from San Quentin's death row after the local district attorney declared she would not retry him. Benavides had been in prison for more than 25 years after being convicted of raping, sodomizing and murdering his girlfriend's 21-month-old daughter.
Benavides was freed after all but one of the medical experts who testified against him recanted their conclusions that the girl had, in effect, been raped to death — conclusions they had reached after reviewing incomplete medical records. In fact, the first nurses and doctors who examined the semiconscious and battered girl in 1991 observed no injuries suggesting she had been raped or sodomized, but those details were not passed along to the medical expert witnesses who testified in court. Injuries later observed at two other hospitals were likely caused by that first effort to save her life, which included attempts to insert an adult-sized catheter.“
As the LA Times noted:
“The case also ought to remind us of the dangers inherent in California's efforts to speed up the calendar for death penalty appeals under Proposition 66, which voters approved in 2016. Moving more quickly to execute convicted death row inmates increases the likelihood that due process will be given short shrift and the innocent will be put to death. Benavides — described in court filings as a seasonal worker with intellectual disabilities — was convicted in 1993. But the records that blew up the case against Benavides, but also raised doubt that Consuelo Verdugo had been murdered at all, were not uncovered until about 2000. Proposition 66 makes it less likely that such diligent research can be completed in the single year it gives appellate attorneys to file their cases (a process that currently consumes three years or more), and thus more likely that innocent people will be put to death.”
Didn't have an intern at the time, work on that case, or assign anyone to work on that case. I certainly would not have hesitated to talk about it.
I called the then-DA when the case came down and made the news. The pathologists retracted their opinion that the little girl had been raped but not that she had died at the hands of another and not accidentally, as the defense claimed. She decided not to reprosecute because with credit for time already served he would likely not do any more time anyway.
As with the Thomas Thompson case, "I didn't rape her, I only murdered her" is not a claim of actual innocence.
The last sentence of the Times quote is a bogus argument we have refuted before. I'm not going to repeat it here.
Steven: California lacks a child murder aggravating factor in its death penalty law. If the abolitionists try again a ballot measure in 2020, a decisive way to defeat it would be to have a competing proposition as in 2016. But this time, it should be an initiative whose only provision would be to add as a new special circumstance the “murder of a child who is under 10 years of age.” (But that would be appropriate only if there is an abolitionist initiative on the same ballot.)
The later medical-expert conclusions in the Benavides case only referred to the "special circumstances" of the victim's death. There seems little question that Benavides murdered the little girl during some sexual assault, but that claims of "death by rape" were unfounded, when in fact, the victim died from blunt force trauma inflicted by Benavides. Read the original CA Supreme Court decision affirming conviction and penalty. Your outrage is misplaced. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-supreme-court/1445694.html
JC. You are utterly incorrect. First, if there had been evidence of rape then the special circumstance and death sentence would have been sustained. The special circumstance requires only a murder in the course of a rape, not that the rape cause the murder. Second, the decision you cite (the direct appeal decision) is based on the very evidence that the AG conceded and the California Supreme Court found was false. There was, in fact, not evidence at all of rape. Third, the AG asked that the Supreme Court reduce the charge to second degree murder on exactly the theory you posit, that the victim died as a result of blunt force trauma. I suggest you watch the oral argument to see that event the most conservative justice in criminal matter, Corrigan, found this argument risible.
Here is what the Supreme Court had to say about the cause of death:
"Stripped of falsity, the evidence would show that Consuelo suffered profound injuries while in petitioner’s care. Petitioner gave a statement to police describing the afternoon’s events and he testified similarly at trial. Petitioner maintained that after the child briefly evaded his supervision, he found her outdoors, vomiting and quite ill. Petitioner presented expert testimony that the child could have been injured in an automobile accident. Prosecution witnesses agreed that the type of injuries Consuelo sustained, including pupil dilation and compression rib fractures, are commonly seen in automobile accidents. Even if the injuries were inflicted at the hands of another, a defense expert testified that multiple types of forceful blows would have been required to explain the different injuries Consuelo suffered. Indeed, the injuries suggest the assailant would have been “in a rage,” although there was evidence that, moments before, petitioner had been calmly fixing a dinner, the makings of which remained in the apartment days later. It is an impossible task to speculate whether the jury would have been persuaded that petitioner was guilty of second degree murder without the false evidence."
https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S111336.PDF
Because of the terrible job done by law enforcement here we will never know what really happened but the evidence most likely points to negligence by Mr. Benevides in allowing the girl to wander outside where she was the victim of a hit and run. The incompetence of both law enforcement and his own trial counsel cost him 26 years of his life.
All of which seems to mean you didn't bother reading the original CA Supreme Court decision which summarizes the trial record. The original treating medical professionals found the victim had conditions which would be similar to blunt trauma from a car accident, except the victim had none of the external abrasions and bruising typically seen. A later forensic examination of the victim's clothing found zero evidence of road debris, gravel, dirt or the typical road grime transfer found on auto - pedestrian accident victims. An accident reconstruction expert testified that no vehicular strike could have resulted in the victim being found where the defendant claimed (but the sister denied).
Further, the victim's older sister testified that she went out to play with a friend, and remained there for 15 minutes without leaving. The defendant then walked up and called the sister inside for her to telephone the mother to come home. The sister said that the victim never went outside, which would seem to eliminate that auto accident scenario. The original surgeon found gross trauma in the victim's abdomen and immediately suspected a kick or punch. He also found both scarring and other injuries which were healing, indicating a history of in jury to the victim.
Further, a CT scan found no head trauma or injury, which also argues against a child under the age of 2 being hit by a car causing fatal injuries but which did not put a scratch on her head. The post mortem found bruising in both sides of the chest, and at least 5 broken ribs. However, the ribs were broken very close to the spine, which argues the ribs were broken from compression of the front of the chest. (This type injury is commonly found in older victims who have been given CPR) The PM also found broken ribs estimated to be four weeks old. Despite the lack of bruises on the head, there was subdural hematoma and swelling of the brain, which typically indicates a shaking rather than a direct blunt trauma to the head. There was bruising and laceration inside of her top lip, usually indicative of someone putting pressure on the outside of the mouth (Think a hand or a pillow). Despite these lacerations, there were no loose teeth or damage to her nose, which would be expected from an accidental impact rather than from injury from pressure. The defendant claimed the victim went outside with her older sister (contradicted by the sister as noted), and that he found her outside vomiting. He said he cleaned up the vomit from the yard. Police found towels and vomit in an inside trash basket. There was no dirt, grass or pebbles in the towel/vomit, but there were fibers from the apartment's rug mixed in the vomit. Crime scene technicians also found a cloth which contained blood, which was similar to the victim but not sufficiently detailed enough to be identifying, and semen which was similar to defendant but not detailed enough to be identifying.
All the final Supreme Court order found was that the medical evidence and medical experts who testified to a sexual assault were in error. In fact, the same medical experts in the main changed their testimony years later. However, no one testified that there was no sexual assault, but rather than the physical evidence of rape could have come from the treatment prior to victim's death, and that penetration as the cause of death was incorrect. This removed the "special circumstances" and so, invalidated the death sentence.
Pretty clearly, there was strong evidence that the victim never left the apartment, remained inside the entire time (15 minutes or less) with the defendant, and somehow sustained fatal injuries consistent with a physical (not sexual) assault. Even the prosecutors who asked the Supreme Court to grant the habeas petition asked the court to simply reduce the first degree murder to a second degree murder. The Court declined since there was evidence not heard by the trial court which needed to be considered by a jury. Prosecutors ultimately decided they could not successfully retry the defendant 28 years later, but the expressed a firm opinion that the defendant murdered the little girl.
As for that gratuitous "Indeed, the injuries suggest the assailant
would have been “in a rage,”, that is a patently false conclusion, nothing more than gross speculation. It may be the case that a very large, strong man used to manual labor hit a 20 month old baby with more force than he intended. 'Rage' is completely unneeded to cause such injuries.
From the final order of the Supreme Court: "Clearly, Consuelo had been seriously injured in the weeks before this incident. She suffered a broken arm two months before her death. Her ribs were fractured at least three to four weeks before her demise. Additionally, dense scars between her colon and liver indicate Consuelo suffered trauma at least a month before her hospitalization. Consuelo had a fever and was crying in pain on the Halloween night several weeks before her passing. She had been vomiting sporadically for weeks before that evening." This all points to continuous and frequent physical abuse. The 9 year old sister also told the mother that the defendant kept the victim in his bedroom all night long on a previous occasion.
Like I said, save your outrage for someone who deserves it....like maybe the victim.