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valid by the U S Supreme Court’ To fight what appears to be widespread opinion supporting the former statement, defenders of Rose Bird recently published a 205-page document refuting a ‘‘White Paper” that was published last year by Bird’s detractors In a story published last August in the Mountain Democrat we highlighted three cases in which the state Supreme Court overturned the death sentences of convicted murderers, those cases were quoted from the White PaperThe White Paper compared the Mozingo case with that of Douglas Stankewitz, who in 1978 participated in the kidnapping of a woman from a parking lot in Modesto The woman was shot in the head then Stankewitz laughed about it, according to the White Paper’s account 1 he death sentence in theStankewitz case was overturnedbecause his defense attorney used a psychiatric defense instead of following Stankewite’s insistence that the lawyer try to prove Stankewitz didn't commit the murdei, according to the White Pape iThe White Paper compared the two cases and concluded that the Supreme Court created an impossible bottle to escape Moz-mgo’s law er was incompetent for complying with his client's desires, Slankewitz’s lawyer was incompetent for not complying with his client’s wishes The common denominator is this whichever way the defense lawyer acts, he is incompetent and the case is reversed ”Bui the writers of the recently i eleased report in favor of Bird’s court callpd the White Paper's logic faulty, based on “a total rms-chat acterization of the Court's ruling' in the two cases I he conviction in the StankewitzARRESTS-case was reversed, Bird's supporters concede, but they say it was done so because of .. the trial judge’s failure to order a hearing into the defendant's mental competency ’’“The California Supreme Court did not rule that the (attorney) was incompetent or gave the defendant ineffective assistance, Bird’s defenders say In fact, the (Supreme) Court did not criticize any of counsel's actions ”A psychiatrist at Stankewitz’s trial had testified that Stankewitz had genuine paranoid delusions that prevented him from cooperating rationally with his lawyer, according to case records Because that testimony was made, the judge should have ordered a hearing to determine whether Stankewitz was mentally capable of cooperating with his lawyer, Bird’s defenders say“All that the (Supreme) Court did in Stankewitz’s case was apply the law,” says the recently released report A statute in this state makes a defendant incompetent to stand trial if he has a mental disorder that makes him unable to assist counsel in the conduct of a defense in a rational manner Now for the Mozingo case, in which the White Paper alleges the Supreme Court overturned the conviction because the defendant’s lawyer followed his client’s wishes and did not present a psychiatric defenseBird’s defenders agree that the case was reversed because of the inadequacy of counsel “But the White Paper is misleading, or just plain wrong, on almost everything else it says about the Mozingo decision,” the 205-page response saysThe authors point out that the decision reversing Mozingo’s conviction was written by former Supreme Court Justice Frank_ continued from A-1Richardson, who “has never been accused of being an anti-death penalty justice ”“So it is misleading to refer to the ’Bird Court’,” the report says Rose Elizabeth Bird may be the Chief Justice of California, but she is sunply one vote out of seven on the California Supreme Court ” Furthermore, Birds supporters say, the decision to overturn Mozingo’s conviction based on tn-competency of counsel was a sound one From the report “In Mozingo’s case, there was a lot of evidence indicating that Mozingo suffered from severe mental illness that may have affected him at the time of the killing In fact, Mozingo had spent all but 150 days out of the prior 11 years in county and state institutions However, defense counsel paid little attention to the evidence Instead he went ahead only with his client’s totally uncorroborated ‘alibi’ defense ”The defense lawyer’s failure to investigate the possibility of presenting an insanity defense was grounds for overturning the conviction, the authors say So as to the alleged “Catch 22“ situation that the writers of the White Paper claim exists, Bird's supporters say that characterization is “absolutely false ” “Stankewitz' lawyer was not incompetent, and the (Supreme) Court never suggested that he was,” the report says The conviction was reversed, in accordance with statute and precedent, because the trial judge did not huld a hearing when presented with evidence that the defendant was mentally incapable of assisting rationally in his defense‘ Mozingo’s lawyer was inadequate But not for ‘complying with his client’s desires' rather he was incompetent for not investigating a possibly meritorious defense Bird’s defenders contend there is no inconsistency in the reversals of convictions in the Mozingo and Stankewite cases In another case cited in the Democrat last August, a man who shot a man to death because he wanted to steal his car was ex-airuned The White Paper decried the state Supreme Court’s reversal of Ronald I^nphear’s death sentence based on what the court at the tune said was impropriety in the selection of a jury Two potential jurors, when asked whether they would be capable of taking part in deliberations that may lead to a vote for the death penalty, replied, “I don’t believe I could ” They were dismissed, because the law says jurors who have their minds made up about not voting for the death penalty cannot sit on a jury But because the potential jurors’ reponses were not “unmistakably clear” in the way the replies were worded, the Supreme Court ruled that the legal limit had not been reached The court rightly did so, Bird’ssupporters sayBased on precedent, the court had no alternative but to reverse Lanphear’s sentence, the writers of the recent report say They say seven such cases were cited in making the Lanphear reversal, and emphasize that a potential juror must make it quite clear that he would automatically vote against a death sentence, no matter what the circumstances of the case1 A juror who says, ‘I believe I would vote against the death penalty’ simply could not be excused under (standards set by precedent established by the U S Supreme Court),” Bird's supporters contendOn a philosophical level, Chief Justice Bird's backers say Bird is not diametrically opposed to the death penalty, despite the fact that she ht-S vited against the death penalty in all 42 cases (as of Dec 1,1985) that have come before her since she was appointed chief justice in 1977 Three of those cases were affirmed by the majority of the state Supreme Court, but her backers say she had “sound reasons for voting against them (Those three cases, incidentally, now are in the hands of federal justices)In fact, Bird’s supporters say if she became convinced the letter of the law were followed completely, she would vote in favor of a death sentenceshould there be any doubt on the matter, Chief Justice Bird is, and will continue to be, fullyprepared to vote for a death sentence that is properly obtained under the law and Constitution,” the report saysThe reason Bird hasn’t voted to affirm a single death penalty sentence is because of flaws in the death penalty initiative passed qy California voters in 1978, her supporters say That law was so full pf flaws that Bird and the othfr Supreme Court justices have be^n struggling to correct it before there is a federal ruling that at must be thrown out because lit violates the Constitution of the United States, according to the recent report jA 1977 law reinstating the deafh penalty in California (after the U S Supreme Court threw out tlje death penalty in all states) wqs superceded by the 1978 initiativp, regarding which Bird supporters say it is an “understatement to call this new law badly drafted *“In a number of places, unfortunate new language in the 1978 law raised serious and far-reaching constitutional problems that were absent from the 1977 law, the report says The California Supreme Court h«(s gone to significant lengths to coj rect these flaws, which otherwise might have rendered the entire 1978 law unconstitutional ”The flaws in the 1978 law are almost all worked out, and ‘ once these are completed, affirmances of death sentences will in crease dramatically, and execu tions will be common, Bird supporters promise in the report '
Newspaper Details
Placerville Mountain Democrat
Placerville, California, US
Wed, Feb 19, 1986
Page 27
Full Page
Clipped by
Lake C.
IN, USA 30 Jul 2020
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