June 5
GEORGIA:
Document: Robert against death penalty charges, even in his own killing
While a Georgia district attorney has announced that she plans to seek the
death penalty in the state's case against the man accused of killing St. Johns
County priest, Father Rene Robert, a document found in Robert's personal papers
says that is something he did not want to ever happen.
Last month, Ashley Wright, district attorney for the Augusta Judicial Circuit,
filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in the case against Steven
James Murray in the Superior Court of Burke County. The notice cites 4
aggravating circumstances in the retired Catholic priest's murder including
that it was committed during the commission of kidnapping with bodily injury
and that it was "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it
involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim."
But a document titled "Declaration of Life" on file at the Diocese of St.
Augustine with Robert's personal papers says none of that should matter.
"I believe that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime and serves only
the purpose of revenge," reads 1 of 4 "background" points in the
page-and-a-half signed, witnessed and notarized document.
"THEREFORE, I hereby declare that should I die as a result of a violent crime,
I request that the person or person found guilty of homicide for my killing not
be subject to or put in jeopardy of the death penalty under any circumstances,
no matter how heinous their crime or how much I may have suffered," it says.
Reached for comment Friday, Wright said she had seen the document which was
sent to her office along with a letter from the Most Rev. Felipe J. Estevez,
bishop of St. Augustine. While she didn't receive the letter until after she
filed the notice of intent, Wright gave no indication that the contents of the
Declaration would have held much sway over her decision making.
"When I make a decision to seek a particular punishment it is based upon fact
and law, and not based on public opinion or sentiment," she said.
Wright is currently seeking re-election and is running unopposed.
Listed among accomplishments on her campaign website are a gubernatorial
appointment to the Judicial Nominating Committee, vice presidency for the
District Attorney's Association of Georgia, prosecution of "over 80 felony jury
trials in (a) 3 county Circuit," and the prosecution of at least 5 death
penalty cases, including the "re-trial of (a) defendant claiming mental
retardation."
Wright told The Record on Friday she was prohibited from speaking specifically
about pending cases, but did say she had not consulted Robert's family about
the death penalty, "because these are decisions that lawyers make, based on
fact and law and whether the law supports the imposition of a particular
sentence or a particular procedural path,"
"My oath actually prohibits me from making decisions based on what the
community demands or rejects," she added.
Wright said a document like Robert's declaration is not "governing" to her.
"We are not supposed to take into account the individual circumstances of the
victim when we are talking about whether someone's case is worthy or not worthy
of seeking the death penalty," she said.
Losing a brother
During the nearly week-long search for her brother after he was reported
missing to the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office on April 12, Deborah Bedard
travelled to the area from her New York state home.
She stood by Sheriff David Shoar's side during a late-night news conference on
April 18 when Shoar announced that Murray had led investigators to Robert's
body in a remote part of Burke County, Georgia, just south of Augusta.
Murray had been arrested days earlier in Aiken, South Carolina, after leading
authorities there on a chase in Robert's car.
A subsequent autopsy determined that Robert had died of multiple gunshot
wounds.
Investigators say Robert came to know the 28-year-old Murray - who had been
released from the Duval County jail on April 6 - through the priest's
still-active active prison ministry.
Bedard remained in town through her brother's April 26 funeral Mass at San
Sebastian Catholic Church.
In his homily, the Rev. Timothy M. Lindenfelser, pastor at St. Anastasia
Catholic Church said, "Father Rene sought out anyone who was neglected,
marginalized and felt unloved or abandoned.
"Father wanted to provide them with an experience of God's love, knowing that
once they had the experience of being loved by him and God, their lives would
be forever changed," he said.
Lindenfelser also spoke of Robert's opposition to the death penalty.
"He protested, either on street corners or at the prison, every time there was
to be an execution," he said.
During the time she was in St. Augustine, as it became apparent that Murray
would likely face charges in connection with Robert's death, Bedard was vocal
in her support for prosecutors seeking the death penalty against him even
though she knew of her brother's beliefs.
As late as Thursday, Bedard said she still supported it though she admitted to
feeling conflicted in light of her brother's long-held convictions. She also
said an "advocate" from Wright's office had been in contact with her, but the
nature of those conversations had mostly to do with keeping her updated on the
progression of the case. Bedard said her support for the death penalty and her
brother's opposition to it had been acknowledged at least once during those
conversations, but she said she was not consulted about what she would want.
Although the Diocese says family members had been provided copies of Robert's
Declaration of Life, Bedard said Thursday she had not seen it.
After being provided a copy by The Record earlier this week, Bedard speculated
on Friday that the copy given to the family might have been in a collection of
papers handed over to another brother.
After reading the strongly worded document, Bedard, who still has a hard time
speaking of her brother in past tense, said she could no longer support the
death penalty in the case against Robert's accused killer.
"I just never knew that my brother was that adamant, that he was that against
it ..." she said. "I have to do what he wants ... I might not be happy with it
... I have to abide by his wishes."
Through tears, Bedard expressed remorse for the things she had said and felt.
"It makes me sad that I was going against his wishes that much; that I didn't
know he was that adamant about having no death penalty against whoever might
hurt him..." she said. "I was just so upset last night with myself, wanting the
death penalty for this character ... I want whatever my brother wants, or
wanted I should say."
Cherish Life Circle
Robert did not write the Declaration of Life. The document is a form with
spaces at the end for signatures from the signer, witnesses and the notary.
The signer requests the "Prosecutor or District Attorney having the
jurisdiction of the person or persons alleged to have committed my homicide not
file or prosecute an action for capital punishment as a result of my homicide."
He or she also requests that the "Declaration be made admissible as a statement
of the victim at the sentencing of the person or person or persons charged and
convicted of my homicide."
"This Declaration is not meant to be, and should not be taken as, a statement
that the person or persons who have committed my homicide should go
unpunished," it says.
In addition to its expressed opposition to the death penalty it contains
explicit instructions to the signer's family, friends and "personal
representative." In the event of the signer's homicide those individuals are
directed to distribute the document to the prosecutor, defense attorney and
judge involved in the case. They are also instructed to distribute it to news
outlets in the county where the crime is said to have occurred.
A letter attached to Robert's Declaration indicates he received it from a group
in Brooklyn, New York, called the Cherish Life Circle. That letter is signed by
Sister Camille D'Arienzo, a nun with the Sisters of Mercy.
Robert signed his declaration on May 23, 1995.
An undated, hand-written note on Robert's letterhead also found in his
personnel file at the Diocese, reads, in part, "My statement on Cherish Life
hasn't changed. So, please keep this in my file."
D'Arienzo said in a phone interview Friday that she never knew Robert and
hadn't even heard his name until she was contacted by the Diocese of St.
Augustine and then by The Record.
The Cherish Life Circle, she said, was formed in the early 1990s while
D'Arienzo was president of the Sisters of Mercy. She explained it was intended
to be a forum for people to discuss the death penalty. It is not as active as
it once was, but the group still organizes an annual inter-faith service in
Brooklyn for the family members of murder victims.
It was shortly after the group was formed, D'Arienzo said, that she first saw
the Declaration of Life and began distributing it to others.
"We have circulated it over the years ... more than 20 years," she said, but
wasn't sure just how many had signed it.
"I would say hundreds for sure, I don't know if I would go up to a thousand,"
she said.
Then-Governor Mario Cuomo even signed a copy around 1993 or 1994, she said. So
too did Sister Karen Klimczak with the Sisters of St. Joseph, according to
D'Arienzo.
Klimczak ran a halfway house for parolees in Buffalo, New York, before she was
killed by one of its residents in 2006, according to a New York Times story
from the time. D'Arienzo said Klimczak was the only other signer of the
Declaration of Life that she was aware of having been murdered, but wasn't sure
if it was ever mentioned during the trial of the man ultimately convicted of
her murder.
While the language of the Declaration has changed over the years as it has been
passed from group to group, the central message remains the same, D'Arienzo
said.
"The essence of the Declaration of Life at its very core is that it is a
personal testimony to opposition to the death penalty," she said.
D'Arienzo didn't know for sure how Robert received his copy, but said she had
written articles for various Catholic publications and had even spoken about
the group and the document in other states.
"He probably read it somewhere and just sent for it," she said. "I probably
mailed it to him ... we've sent out so many of them."
Change of heart
After it was reported that Wright had filed notice of the state's intent to
seek the death penalty in the case against Murray, Bishop Estevez wrote a
letter to the editor of The Record - printed in the May 29 edition - that said,
in part, "imposing a sentence of death as a consequence of killing only
perpetuates a cycle of violence."
"Society remains safe when violent criminals are imprisoned for life," Estevez
wrote.
And that's Bedard's position now. If convicted, she wants to be sure Murray
stays in prison.
"That's my fear is for him to possibly get out at some point in his life and do
something like this again," she said. "That's my fear."
Estevez's recently published letter contained much the same message as the one
he sent to Wright's office, he said in a Friday phone interview. And, he said,
it is essentially the same position that the bishops of Florida have held since
the 1970s.
"This is not being soft on crime," he said of the position. "It is responding
to crime in a way that is not as violent as the crime that has been committed."
D'Arienzo said giving people a reason to stop and reflect on that is part of
the value of Robert's signed statement.
"I think wanting the death penalty is a very natural 1st response," she said.
"If a member of my family, or a friend of mine, were killed, I would want it.
But then I would hope that I would cling to the deeper truth of my life and my
faith and my values. I think that is what the Declaration of Life allows people
to do."
Bedard, who said she is Catholic but does not attend church and struggles with
some of the Church's teachings, said the document, as much as it upset her,
also gave her pause.
"Reading it, it kind of really turns me a little toward maybe not ever thinking
of the death penalty again," she said. "I am so torn now."
Those who spoke of Robert at his funeral Mass and at a vigil the day before it,
shared amusing stories of a tenacious priest who did not shy away from conflict
brought on by challenging people's thinking.
The tears gone, but still clinging to the present tense, Bedard laughed on
Friday at the memories of her brother's determination and stubborn streak and
reflected that her possible change of heart and its associated inner turmoil
would likely not trouble him at all.
"Oh no," she said. "He's very happy right now."
[MY NOTE:--see: http://www.quaker.org/declaration-of-life.html]
(source: St. Augustine Record)
MISSOURI:
Prison chaplains share reasons for their opposition to the death penalty
The Rev. Sam Duckworth said his opposition to the death penalty began at age 6
when he saw a man beaten to death by a plantation owner in Mississippi.
"The plantation owner would administrate the justice. He was the judge, the
arrestor, accuser, prosecutor and executor," Duckworth said. "I opposed the
death penalty from that day on, watching someone get whooped to death."
His wife, Patricia, made the same decision after seeing the man who murdered
her niece in the courtroom.
"I had some very mixed emotions sitting there in that courtroom not knowing,"
said Patricia Duckworth.
"I had this pull on me where I thought, 'This man deserves to die for what he
did,' and then my heart is saying, 'No, maybe he shouldn't.'"
The Duckworths and a 3rd chaplain discussed the the death penalty and their
experiences with death row inmates on Saturday at the Unitarian-Universalist
Church. The panel discussion was organized by Missourians for Alternatives to
the Death Penalty.
The 3 panelists have been affiliated with the Potosi Correctional Center, a
maximum security facility in Washington County.
They all agreed that inmates can change during long prison sentences, so the
individual facing execution may not be the same as the one who committed the
crime.
"Sometimes executions might take 20 to 25 years," Patricia Duckworth said. "In
that time, sometimes you see a person that's become a new creature."
The panel also noted that executions contradict the purpose of the restorative
justice programs underaken by inmates.
Since Missouri allows death row inmates to take part in the restorative justice
system, they shouldn't be suddenly cut off from it, said the Rev. Herb Conley.
"If you are going to give a man a chance to restore himself, and he does, then
why shouldn't he have the right to continue to be a part of that community?" he
said.
Conley said he didn't have an abrupt awakening to an opposition to the death
penalty, but his advocacy is no less strong.
In an unprecedented move for a chaplain, he said he submitted affidavits to
Gov. Jay Nixon in unsuccessful attempts to stop 2 executions during his time in
Potosi.
Patricia Duckworth cited the case of a death row inmate in Potosi named Leon
Taylorwho was able to transform himself during his time in prison through
religion, she said. He was playing guitar in the worship band when his
execution date was set.
"I saw the effects that he had on the other inmates," she said. "He modeled
before them just what the Lord had placed in his spirit and how he was going to
carry on."
Taylor asked both Duckworths to witness his execution. Patricia Duckworth
credited God and Taylor's transformation for their ability to watch his death.
"Some of those hearts in the prison are actually changed," she said. "Leon
Taylor was one of those people."
The death penalty no longer serves its intended purpose as a deterrent to
violent crime, Conley said.
"If we want to do it as a deterrent, we need to do it like we used to - put
them out there in a hanging or a guillotine and let the whole world see," he
said.
(source: Columbia Missourian)
OKLAHOMA:
Jury set for trial of man in death of his father and brother
A jury has been seated for the 1st-degree murder trial of a Lawton man charged
with killing his father and 14-year-old brother.
The jury was seated Friday and opening statements in the trial of 20-year-old
Thorsten Rushing are to begin Monday.
Rushing has pleaded not guilty to 2 counts of murder and 2 counts of conspiracy
to commit murder in the January 2014 shooting deaths of 50-year-old Uwe Rushing
and 14-year-old Stefan Rushing.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
2 co-defendants have pleaded guilty to murder in the case and are serving life
in prison. 2 other co-defendants are in prison after pleading guilty to
conspiracy and being accessories after the crime.
Witnesses at a preliminary hearing said Rushing may have been motivated by
money from his father's life insurance policy.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
On California's death row, too insane to execute
On an August afternoon in 1984, Linda Marie Baltazar Pasnick, a 27-year-old
aspiring model, was running errands before a fashion competition when she
pulled into the drive-through at a Der Wienerschnitzel.
As she waited in line, a panhandler pushed his face into her window and she
shooed him away. Ronnie McPeters came back with a gun, leaned in to her open
window and fired 3 times. Then as her car rolled forward and she cried for
help, he shot twice more.
McPeters spent the next nine months in the "rubber room" of the Fresno jail. He
set fires and assaulted jailers. He told a psychiatrist he was filming a
commercial. His bizarre behavior escalated at San Quentin State Prison's death
row, where in months he fell into a stupor, smearing feces on the walls, the
floor and himself.
Now, McPeters is at the center of a legal battle with profound implications for
California's death row.
Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris' office has asked the California Supreme Court to
remove Peters from death row, arguing he will always be too gravely disabled to
execute. State prosecutors believe McPeters' sentence should be be converted to
life, to be spent in other prisons or state medical facilities.
Ronnie McPeters
Diagnosis: Schizophrenia
If the state's highest court agrees, Harris' legal theory of "permanent
incompetence" would make California the 1st to address a growing problem of
aging and gravely mentally ill inmates awaiting ever-delayed execution.
But the move is also likely spark outrage from families of victims who feel the
death sentences handed down by juries should be honored.
Harris' chief deputy said California has "at least a few other" condemned
inmates who like McPeters appear unfit for execution, though he would not cite
names.
Federal judges have declared 9 men on death row, including McPeters, so
incompetent they cannot assist their attorneys. Lawyers for at least 10 more
death row inmates have attempted to raise execution sanity claims. Judges,
however, have refused to hear those cases, saying it was premature to decide
the issue until execution was imminent.
On his worst days on death row, McPeters hoards his feces, rolled for
safekeeping, or soaks himself in urine, according to prison psychiatric reports
contained in court records. He speaks to a wife and children who did not exist.
He says he's tormented by the inner voices of the relatives of Linda Pasnick.
His care has been inconsistent. At times he was involuntarily medicated for
schizophrenia. At another, his psychotropic drugs were stopped. One
psychiatrist sent him to be hospitalized and the next had him strapped down 5
days for observation, then declared him a faker and treated him with vitamin
B-12, records show.
In 2007, U.S. District Judge Lawrence O'Neill ruled that McPeters was
incompetent to pursue the appeal of his 1986 conviction. Moreover, the judge
said, McPeters was likely too insane to execute and the state was wasting money
keeping him on death row.
"The public is getting financially raped in this case and this is outrageous,"
O'Neill shot back at an April 2013 status conference according to a transcript.
"We don't have one scintilla of evidence ... that he is anything but
incompetent."
Transcripts from court proceedings show then-Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown's office
rebuffed the Oakland judge's order to craft a settlement aimed at removing
McPeters from death row. When Harris took over that office, she continued
Brown's tack.
Then last year, Harris' office changed course. She joined McPeters' appeal
lawyers in asking the Supreme Court to declare he could never be killed because
of his mental condition.
Harris' solution stunned Victor Pasnick, who had been married to Linda less
than 2 years when she was killed.
"She was just blossoming and all of a sudden she is feeling good and great," he
said, "and then she is murdered."
He said he didn't think McPeters' mental state should play a role in whether
he's executed.
"I can't say he didn't deserve it," Pasnick said. "Knowing what this guy did,
making sure she was dead, I think somebody should make sure he is dead. It's
fair play."
Fresno County prosecutors, who secured the death penalty against McPeters, said
they disagree with Harris' approach. Prosecutors said Harris is opening the
door to scores of frivolous challenges in a state where appeals are already
bogged down.
"We're afraid this will become a permanent procedure," Assistant Dist. Atty.
Blake Gunderson said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since California restored the death penalty in 1978, jurors in the state have
condemned some 900 convicted murderers. Of those, the state has executed 13,
and only 16 more have exhausted their appeals.
Currently 747 remain on death row, mostly men housed at San Quentin State
Prison. They are as old as 85 and have been there as long as 37 years. Some 2
dozen require wheelchairs or walkers and at least 1 is confined to bed in
diapers.
Complicating matters, executions have been stopped for the last 10 years by
legal battles over lethal drug protocols. Opposing ballot initiatives in
November ask voters to do away with the death penalty, or to hasten appeals and
give the idle condemned something to do with their time, like work.
In the shadow of this debate over the future of the death penalty, officials
have just now begun to grapple with how to deal with a subset of the death row
population: The gravely insane.
Schizophrenia, psychosis and paranoia. Are these California death row inmates
too crazy to execute?
Conditions on death row have long been a subject of debate and legal battles.
In the 1980s, the state was ordered to provide basic necessities such as soap
and exercise. 10 years ago, the litigation focused on vermin living on East
Block that left inmates with rodent bites and encrusted the tier railings in
pigeon dung.
A state psychiatrist in one deposition described death row as a "dark, dingy,
noisy place" with naked men huddled in the back of their cells, and "psychotic
patients yelling, hollering, screaming."
By 2013, California had the nation's highest rate of suicide on death row. 11
inmates killed themselves from 2006 to 2013. Prison records show that officials
had referred each of them for mental health services.
The issue came to a head that year, when Gov. Jerry Brown filed a motion to end
federal oversight of prison psychiatric care statewide. His bid instead opened
death row to outside scrutiny for the first time in a decade.
Dr. Pablo Stewart, a nationally acclaimed forensic psychiatrist hired by
inmates' lawyers, said he discovered "a place of terrible failures" with what
he called "a high tolerance for psychiatric dysfunction:" unchecked suicides
and inmates whose poor condition showed minimal to no psychiatric treatment for
decades.
Stewart's reports on 10 anonymous prisoners persuaded U.S. District Judge
Lawrence Karlton to order California to provide full mental healthcare to the
condemned.
In late 2014 the state opened the nation's 1st death row psychiatric ward.
Less than a year later, 39 of the 40 cells in that ward were occupied and seven
other disabled inmates were moved elsewhere. Records obtained by The Times show
those recommended for psychiatric hospitalization included inmates untreated
for decades, some of whom were delusional and screaming, or afraid to come out
of their cells.
Joseph Danks
Diagnosis: Schizophrenia, paranoid type
They included serial killer Joseph Danks, known as the Koreatown Stalker, and
Los Angeles cyanide killer James Blair.
Prison records show involuntary medication orders on death row have tripled,
while suicides have plummeted since guards were required to check each
condemned inmate every half hour.
"Build the beds and they will come," state prison executive Elena Tootell wrote
in an internal memo. "We could probably fill any number of mental health beds."
Years of inadequate psychiatric care have taken a toll on death row.
In 2013, a mental health expert hired by the attorney general's office noted
that killer Darren Stanley "was obviously and profoundly psychotic," and had
gone "undiagnosed and untreated for years" at San Quentin, even after a chance
CT scan revealed the front lobes of his brain were degenerating.
Darren Stanley
Diagnosis: Dementia and psychosis
An independent psychiatrist chosen by a federal judge in 2014 found that Oscar
Gates, who gunned down 2 Oakland crime partners and contends the state seeks to
steal his inheritance from Howard Hughes, remains not only incompetent to
assist in his appeals, but after 26 years without treatment and "the long
duration of his mental illness," is likely beyond restoration.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 ruled that execution of the insane was cruel,
but left the test for sanity to the states.
Under California law, the competency of an inmate is not reviewed until weeks
before an execution. If the warden then questions an inmate's sanity, a sanity
trial is conducted. That has happened only twice in California, the last time
in 1998, when the state sought to execute Horace Kelly for rape and murder.
Kelly lived in a trash- and feces-filled cell so foul guards put on masks if
they had to enter to hose it down. 5 of 6 experts concluded Kelly was
incompetent. But a Marin County jury found Kelly "aware" of his sentence and
the reason for it and voted for execution, 9-3. A stay by a federal judge
stalled the execution, and Kelly's lawyers have since raised new grounds for
appeal.
Notes from a prison meeting in the case show San Quentin staff debated whether
forcing Kelly to take medications would make him "healthy enough for us to
execute him."
The California Supreme Court has rejected other such motions put before it as
"premature," because execution was not imminent and the inmate's mental state
might change.
Horace Kelly
Diagnosis: Schizophrenia, disorganized type
But over the last few years, at least three federal judges have pressed the
state attorney general's office to remove the most insane inmates from death
row -- including the judge hearing McPeters' appeal.
State lawyers have said they can only take such action if there has been a
"miscarriage of justice."
That stance changed last year when Harris struck a deal with the Habeas Corpus
Resource Center, a state-funded legal center created to train death row appeal
attorneys. After nearly 3 decades, McPeters' death penalty appeal had made it
to federal court but stalled over the question of whether he was sane enough to
assist lawyers. Harris' office agreed that if the center would file a new
appeal with the California Supreme Court contending McPeters is permanently
insane, Harris would tell the court she has no reason to disagree and ask that
his death sentence be dropped.
"You cannot execute someone who is incompetent. There is no dispute about
that," said Nathan Barankin, Harris' chief deputy. He said his office now
believes some condemned inmates are so "grievously incompetent" there is no
need to wait for an execution date to declare them insane.
Although local prosecutors have no official role in the settlement, Barankin
said, the state Supreme Court could send McPeters' case back to Fresno County
for resentencing.
In the end, Barankin said, the attorney general's office was unsure what
happens to McPeters after "the death penalty is taken off the table."
"We're making this up as we go along," he said. "It is a new process and
procedure."
Michael Rushford, director of the conservative Criminal Legal Justice
Foundation, which sued the state to force renewal of executions, said
incompetent inmates should be removed from death row. But he and others voiced
concern over who would be eligible. At the same time, defense lawyers opposed
leaving the decision to the attorney general.
Jeffrey Jones
Diagnosis: Schizophrenia with catatonia
Deciding who should be spared the death penalty could be a wrenching process
complicated, experts say, by the likely public outrage over declaring notorious
criminals too insane to be executed.
Jeffrey Jones is one of those difficult cases. In 1985, he prowled public
restrooms around Sacramento with a claw hammer to bash the heads of strangers,
killing 3.
During his 3 decades on death row, Jones has cascaded between mute catatonia
and rabid mania, declaring he was the decapitated governor of California. For
the last 3 years, psychiatric and court files show, he has been barely able to
grunt.
His federal defenders have filed a new state appeal in the 31-year-old murder
case, contending Jones mental condition makes it cruel for the state to condemn
him to death.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
*******************
Sacramento legal giant Quin Denvir dead at 76
Quin Denvir, the longtime federal defender in Sacramento who campaigned against
the death penalty and orchestrated a deal that kept Unabomber Theodore
Kaczynski off death row, died Friday in Sacramento. He was 76.
Denvir was diagnosed 4 years ago with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an
incurable disease that results in scarring of the lungs over time. He was
hospitalized last month and died Friday night at Sutter Medical Center in
Sacramento, according to family friends.
Denvir, who was known as an unassuming man who rarely talked about himself, did
not tell many of his closest associates or friends about the diagnosis.
"The first I heard that he was not doing well was 2 days ago," said U.S.
District Judge Dale A. Drozd, who called Denvir's death "a huge loss for the
legal community in California and, really, across the country."
"He was a quiet, personally unassuming guy," Drozd said.
Unless he was in court. Then, said Drozd, "he could really deliver the
thunder."
Denvir, a nationally recognized trial and appellate lawyer, retired in 2005 as
the federal defender for the Sacramento-based Eastern District of California.
Throughout his storied career, he represented some of the state's most
notorious defendants and earned the respect of judges and prosecutors across
the aisle. Besides Kaczynski, the architect of a string of deadly bombings that
triggered a massive nationwide manhunt, he also represented Reza Eslaminia,
charged in the Billionaire Boys Club murder of the former Iranian official who
was his father. He signed on with clients as diverse as Michelle "Batgirl"
Cummiskey, who was sentenced to 25 years to life in the stabbing slaying of a
58-year-old Sacramento man in 1991, and Bill Honig, the former state schools
chief convicted of conflict of interest charges in 1993.
After his retirement from the federal defender???s office, he continued to
handle defense cases from his Davis home when it suited him and maintained his
long, public opposition to the death penalty.
In March, Denvir urged Gov. Jerry Brown to commute the sentences of the 747
condemned inmates on death row in California, saying in a letter to the
governor that he had "been haunted by the death penalty" since it was
reinstated in California in 1977.
"I have represented several death row inmates who were able to avoid execution,
and I lost one, Tom Thompson," Denvir said in the letter to Brown, who
appointed Denvir as state public defender in his 1st term as governor. "He was
very likely innocent of capital murder, and his case has been chronicled by
(9th U.S. Circuit) Judge (Stephen) Reinhardt as a miscarriage of justice."
Sacramento attorney Brad Wishek, who met Denvir 25 years ago as a young lawyer,
described Denvir as an extremely positive person who made his wife, children
and grandchildren "the center of his life."
"Quin was one of those people if you were around him, he just made you a better
person," Wishek said. "He was a really extraordinary lawyer, but he had no ego
at all. He really, really cared about people."
Denvir was instrumental in helping two of his most notorious clients avoid
being sentenced to death while working as federal defender.
One was Kaczynski, who avoided the death penalty because of the efforts of
Denvir and defense attorney Judy Clarke. Instead, Kaczynski was sentenced to
life in prison for the years-long bombing campaign he conducted as the
Unabomber that killed 3 and injured 29.
Denvir's office succeeded in winning a similar deal from federal prosecutors
for Cary Stayner in the 1999 beheading of naturalist Joie Armstrong in Yosemite
National Park. Stayner was sentenced to life in that killing, but later given
the death penalty in state court for the slayings of three female tourists near
Yosemite.
He argued 3 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, more than 25 before the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals and more than 25 before the California Supreme Court,
including 3 that resulted in reversal of guilty verdicts in death penalty
cases.
Denvir was born on the south side of Chicago May 27, 1940, to an Irish Catholic
family and graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1962, then spent 4
years in the Navy, leaving in 1966 as a lieutenant. He earned a master's degree
in economics from American University in Washington, D.C., and worked in the
Pentagon for the Secretary of the Navy.
While in Washington he met and married Ann Gallagher, who he described years
later as his best friend.
Denvir returned to his hometown and earned his law degree from the University
of Chicago in 1969, then went to work for a large Washington law firm.
But he decided in 1971 he wanted to work for the public good and took a job in
El Centro with California Rural Legal Assistance, a non-profit that works for
the interests of migrant laborers and the poor.
"I had worked for big, corporate clients, and felt there were a lot of lawyers
who could do a fine job for them," he told The Bee in 1996. "It occurred to me
that I could do more good working for people who couldn't afford me."
Denvir also spent a year as a public defender for Monterey County and in 1978
was appointed by Brown to be the state public defender, a post he held until
1984.
He worked for a civil firm until 1987, when he set out as a sole practitioner
specializing in criminal defense work. In 1996, he was appointed as federal
defender for the Eastern District of California and remained there until his
retirement in 2005.
(source: Sacramento Bee)
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