7:58 PM: A former prosecutor said today that a federal judge’s decision to overturn the conviction and death penalty of a man who was found guilty of murdering two followers of the Grateful Dead band at a homeless encampment in Berkeley in 1985 was “an abuse of judicial discretion.”
Former Alameda County Assistant District Attorney James Anderson, who prosecuted Ralph International Thomas in 1986 for the August 1985 murders of Mary Gioia, 22, and Greg Kniffin, 18, said the Sept. 9 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Patel was “an outrageous bit of judicial jokery.”
But Thomas’s appellate lawyer, A. J. Kutchins, said, “It is wonderful that after all of these years, the court has recognized that Mr. Thomas did not get a fair trial.”
Patel ruled that Thomas was denied a fair trial because his defense lawyer was incompetent and failed to locate witnesses who would have pointed to another resident of the encampment as a possible suspect.
Kutchins said he’s happy for Thomas, who’s now 55, but he said his happiness is tempered by the fact that Thomas is now “in extremely bad health.”
He said Thomas recently was transferred from death row at San Quentin State Prison to a prison hospital at Corcoran State Prison in Kings County because he has suffered a series of strokes, has severe dementia and can no longer care for himself.
Patel’s ruling entitles Thomas to a new trial in Alameda County Superior Court.
Senior Assistant California Attorney General Gerald Engler said, “We’re seriously considering an appeal” and state lawyers “strongly disagree” with the ruling.
Patel wrote that Thomas’s trial attorney, former Alameda County Assistant Public Defender James Chaffee, could have located as many as 10 witnesses who could have cast doubt on whether Thomas was guilty and could have pointed to another resident of the encampment as a possible suspect.
Gioia and Kniffin were beaten and shot at close range on the night of August 15-16, 1985.
They were so-called “Deadheads,” or followers of the Grateful Dead, and were staying at Rainbow Village, a former homeless encampment set up by the city of Berkeley, because a local Grateful Dead concert was expected the following weekend.
Patel ruled on a habeas corpus petition filed by Thomas after the California Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in 1992 and then rejected a similar habeas corpus petition by a 6-1 vote in 2006.
Kutchins said Chaffee “bizarrely refused to use an investigator to try to find witnesses to the murder and said he would find the witnesses himself but never did so.
Kutchins said investigators who worked on the case many years after Thomas was convicted were able to find the witnesses, who said Gioia and Kniffin were murdered by another “Deadhead,” a blonde-haired man named “Bo.”
Kutchins said Thomas, who was homeless, didn’t have a motive to kill Gioia and Kniffin and the evidence against him was weak.
He said the witnesses who were found after the trial indicated that “Bo” had a motive to kill Gioia because he had been romantically involved with her.
However, Anderson, who was named California’s prosecutor of the year in 1993 and put 10 people on death row, the most of any prosecutor in the state, said he “tried like mad” to find witnesses to the slayings but it was hard to find them because they were “deadheads” who were “blowing in the wind” and couldn’t be found.
Anderson, who retired in 2004, said Patel’s ruling that Chaffee was incompetent “slanders a good guy and a good lawyer.”
Anderson said the case against Thomas was circumstantial. But he said Thomas had at least 10 prior felony convictions and the crime fit in with Thomas’s pattern of kidnapping and molesting female hitchhikers.
12:07 PM: A federal judge in San Francisco has overturned the conviction and death penalty of a man who was convicted of murdering two followers of the Grateful Dead band at a homeless encampment in Berkeley in 1985.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel said in a ruling issued last week that Ralph International Thomas, 55, was denied a fair trial in Alameda County Superior Court in 1986 because his defense lawyer was incompetent.
Patel wrote that the defense attorney could have located as many as 10 witnesses who could have cast doubt on whether Thomas was guilty and could have pointed to another resident of the encampment as a possible suspect.
The two victims, Mary Gioia, 22, and Greg Kniffin, 18, were beaten and shot at close range on the night of August 15-16, 1985.
They were so-called “Deadheads,” or followers of the Grateful Dead, and were staying at Rainbow Village, a former homeless encampment set up by the city of Berkeley, because a local Grateful Dead concert was expected the following weekend.
Patel ruled on a habeas corpus petition filed by Thomas after the California Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in 1992 and then rejected a similar habeas corpus petition by a 6-1 vote in 2006.
Prosecutors can now either appeal the ruling or go back to Alameda County Superior Court for a new trial.
Senior Assistant California Attorney General Gerald Engler said, “We’re seriously considering an appeal” and said state lawyers “strongly disagree” with the ruling.
Thomas is now gravely ill, however, according to one of his attorneys, A.J. Kutchins. The attorney said Thomas is severely physically and mentally impaired, possibly because of a series of strokes, and has been moved from San Quentin State Prison to a prison hospital at Corcoran State Prison in Kings County.
Kutchins said, “It is wonderful that after all of these years, the court has recognized that Mr. Thomas did not get a fair trial.”
