AIRAN SCRUBY
News Editor
School of Law Dean Ken Starr, together with the rest of the defense team in the clemency case of Michael Morales, has decided to withdraw documents that the prosecution alleged were forged.
The documents deemed false in a Friday press conference by the prosecution were letters from jurors who had originally recommended the death penalty for Morales. Six such letters were submitted. Of these, five were withdrawn Monday after the jurors whose signatures were on the letters denied having written them.
Morales is scheduled to die by lethal injection Feb. 21 in San Quentin Prison for the rape and murder of Terri Winchell, 17, in 1983.
“I think it proves our belief that they were forged,” Charles Schultz, current supervisor of homicide cases in San Joaquin County said of the choice to withdraw the letters. Schultz said investigators from the San Joaquin County Department of Justice called jurors who had submitted letters after one juror contacted Schultz to let him know that a letter had been submitted in her name, though she had not sent it.
Starr and co-counsel David Senior said they would continue to investigate the validity of the letters, but would not use the documents in question. Starr said the letters were not central to the case, but on the perjury of a witness during Morales’ trial.
“We’re not relying on juror declarations,” Starr said. “Let the investigation go forward, but don’t let what happened taint the value and the validity of Michael’s case.”
Kathleen Culhane, an investigator working with the defense team, collected the letters.
Starr held a question and answer session at the School of Law Wednesday, where he explained the case to law school students, professors and administrators.
“I have seen nothing to suggest that Dean Starr acted with anything but complete integrity,” President Andrew K. Benton wrote in an e-mail. “There are elements of the case that are troubling, to be sure, but I don’t believe they have anything to do with that portion of the case he undertook in the last few weeks.”
Starr said he took the case in January, after consulting with David Senior, an attorney who was already a part of the case. Starr created a clemency request and reviewed included materials, which asked California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute Morales’ sentence to life in prison without parole, rather than carrying out his death penalty conviction.
Starr said Morales, now 46, was influenced by his cousin to commit the crime, and was using PCP and drinking at the time of the murder. He later expressed remorse for the crime, has returned to his Christian upbringing and maintains relationships with his three adult children.
Schultz said that the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s office stands by the original conviction.
“The crime as brutal and evil, and nothing has changed that,” Schultz said.
Morales was sentence to death because of the testimony of a fellow inmate. The inmate said that Morales had been “lying in wait” to kill Winchell, meaning it was maliciously planned previous to the incident on the night of her death.
Charles McGrath, the judge in the case, wrote to the governor requesting clemency because the testimony of this inmate was false. Because of this, grounds for the death penalty no longer exist in the case.
The case for clemency has been made through the governor with a clemency request, and further action is at Schwarzenegger’s discretion. He may choose to ask for a hearing to grant clemency without a hearing or to refuse the request entirely.
Starr said that many governors have been reluctant to grant clemency in previous cases.
“Our argument is informed in the law, but it is a plea for mercy,” Starr said.
02-16-2006