June 30, 2010
Stories of Wrongful Conviction from California, continued:
More than 200 men and women have been wrongfully convicted of serious crimes in California, six of whom were sentenced to death. Here are some of their stories.
Gloria Killian
County: Sacramento
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1986
Sentence: 32 years to life
Year Released: 2002
Years Served: 18 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: False testimony of informant; misconduct by prosecutor
Gloria Killian is an aspiring attorney, a member of the steering committee of the San Francisco-based non-profit, Free Battered Women, and the founder and executive director of a non-profit, Action Committee for Women in Prison in Los Angeles, which helps women in prison who are serving life or housed on death row. Gloria's interest in the issue of women in prison stems from her own experience as a woman once incarcerated, wrongfully so, in California.
Gloria, while on break from her classes at McGeorge Law School, was convicted of robbery-murder. In this horrific twist of her life course, Gloria was sentenced to 32 years to Life in prison, only narrowly escaping the hands of a death sentence, as a Supreme Court decision made her ineligible for the death penalty - that decision has since been overturned.
"They destroyed my entire life," said Gloria. "They took everything I had and they smashed it into a million pieces just because they could."
The crucial piece of evidence against Gloria was the testimony of Gary Masse, already serving a life sentence for a 1981 robbery-murder. Masse contacted the Sacramento Sheriff's office in 1986 "to see if any deals could be struck" and in exchange for a reduced sentence, he testified that Gloria had planned and helped execute the robbery and murder - lying under oath that he did not have a leniency deal with the prosecution.
Several years later, an attorney for one of Masse's co-defendants discovered Masses' letters to the prosecutor that explained his lies, which led to Gloria's conviction. Gloria, however, had no money to hire a lawyer and no court-appointed attorney; without either, her knowledge of the letter was hopeless.
Her saving grace was Joyce Ride, mother of Sally Ride, who took an interest in Gloria's case and personally financed a new investigation. This investigation led to a hearing in 2000 in which Masse revealed his perjury and arrangement with the prosecution. The groundwork was now laid for Gloria's successful appeal to the 9th Circuit, which resulted in her being set free in 2002 after 18 years behind bars.
"When you hear about cases like ours, demand some accountability," said Gloria. "Because if can happen to us, it's happening to other people, and it can happen to you, too."
Jason Kindle
County: Los Angeles
Convicted of: Armed Robbery
Year of Conviction: 2000
Sentence: 70 years to life
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 2 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Junk science; ineffective assistance of counsel
On one early morning in 1999, a man approached the front doors of a Los Angeles Office Depot as it was opening. The man produced a gun, rounded up the employees, and demanded cash. Jason Kindle, who at the time worked at the Office Depot, was accused of the armed robbery and convicted mainly because of a laundry list of store cleaning instructions found in his home. Police and the district attorney believed it was a robbery "to-do" list, when in fact the list contained notes Kindle took during a training course with Cover-All Cleaning, his employer. Kindle's supervisor testified that the list did indeed result from the training course. Kindle's conviction was also based on inaccurate voice recognition testimony. He was sentenced under the "three strikes" law to 70 years to life.
Kindle's conviction was reversed due to the failure of the defense to call an expert on identifications. The California Innocence Project, along with a local Los Angeles attorney, presented evidence to the trial court of a videotape of the robbery that definitively proved that the actual perpetrator was 6 feet 6 inches tall. Kindle is only 6 feet tall, six inches shorter than the person seen on the videotape. The charges against Kindle were dismissed and Kindle was released.
Kenneth Marsh
County: San Diego
Convicted of: 2nd Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1983
Sentence: 15 years to life
Year Released: 2004
Years Served: 21 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Junk science
Ken Marsh and Brenda Buell were enjoying the happiest moments of their life in 1983 in San Diego County. Ken, a man of slim stature and a warm smile, was a 28 year old man, busy splitting his time working as a supervisor at the local Coca-Cola plant and running his house-painting business. Brenda worked in as an assistant manager at a local wholesale florist. Living together, the best friends were raising Brenda's two very young children, Jessica and Phillip Buell.
Twenty-three years later, Ken and Brenda are now married but the stories that fill the last two decades of each of their lives are very different. Ken, now 51, is a man with separation anxiety and heartbreaking eyes, who finds behind him twenty-one years of his dignity, shredded and stolen by the California's criminal justice system.
In 1983, Ken was babysitting Brenda's two children, when Phillip, 33-months old, fell from the couch and hit his head on a brick hearth. Ken called the paramedics, who transported Phillip to Children's Hospital. Phillip died that evening. The doctors had noted the incident as child abuse, though the injury was treated as an accidental fall by the San Diego Police Department. Ken was taken into custody, and later charged and convicted of the second degree murder of Phillip Buell.
Brenda never lost hope in Ken and struggled for the next 21 years to free the innocent man she loved. They were not allowed to see each other during the two decades Ken spent in prison but maintained their relationship through covert letters.
"What happened to us in 1983," says a tearful Marsh, "They ripped us apart."
After eighteen years of imprisonment, the pieces of Ken's wrongful conviction began to come together. Brenda found a dispatcher who had recorded the discussion in the ambulance transport to Children's Hospital. The transport was initially labeled as uneventful; however, the treatment Philip, a baby with a blood disorder, was given actually acerbated his brain swelling, causing cardiac arrest. He had died before he even arrived at Children's. The California Innocence Project, along with a local San Diego attorney, sought a new trial after uncovering additional forensic evidence that proved Ken's innocence. In 2004, the district attorney's office dismissed the charges and Ken was a free man.
Contact Info
- FAY ARFA, A Law Corporation
10100 Santa Monica Boulevard,
Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Toll-Free 800-984-8422
Phone: 310-841-6805
Fax: 310-841-0817
Email: info@bestdefender.com
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