BACKGROUND: (From a previous post of this Blog): November 11, 2020: "Stankewitz, a California Native American who prefers to be called “Chief,” is the longest-serving condemned inmate at San Quentin State Prison with a total of 42 years. Just last year, he had his sentence reduced from death to life without parole, but Stankewitz also stands as the longest-serving death row inmate in California. He was convicted for the murder of Theresa Graybeal and sentenced to death at the young age of 19. The Initial Arrest: On the night of February 8, 1978, Stankewitz was accused of kidnapping, robbing, and then murdering Graybeal. Four other individuals, Marlin Lewis, Christina Menchaca, Tina Topping, and Billy Brown, were also involved in the incident. The story on record states that it all began that night when the four became stranded in Modesto. Hoping to hitch a ride by stealing a car, they set their sights on Graybeal outside a K-Mart store, forced her into her vehicle, and drove off. After buying and shooting up heroin in Fresno, the group drove to Vine Avenue and 10th street in Calwa. According to Brown’s testimony in court, it was in Calwa where he witnessed Stankewitz raise a gun and shoot Graybeal on the back of her head. “Did I drop her or did I drop her?” Brown quoted Stankewitz as saying to the group. Later that evening, Stankewitz, Menchaca, Topping (still driving Graybeal’s car), and Lewis were arrested by Fresno police. Brown was dropped home earlier and told his mother what had occurred. On October 12, 1978, Stankewitz was sentenced to death for the murder of Graybeal. In August 1982, Stankewtiz’s case was automatically appealed, and remanded to Superior Court, due to the trial court’s failure to hold a competency hearing. But Stankewitz was once again convicted and sentenced to death in November 1983. A Wrongful Conviction: Despite being found guilty, Chief has claimed his innocence since day one. To him, it’s all in the evidence. In 2017, new evidence was discovered which the prosecution had concealed in previous trials. Such evidence raised the possibility that a wrongful conviction had occurred."
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/8423609212647728003
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "James Ardaiz is the lead prosecutor in the first trial who lied to the court, tried to frame the chief originally, and that trial was overturned. And Ardaiz went on to become the presiding judge of the fifth Appellate District and became this powerful judge, powerful force in Fresno,” Briggs explained."
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STORY: "Chief Stankewitz Granted an Evidentiary Hearing as His Attorneys Attempt to Get Him a New Trial after 46 Years," by Executive Editor David M. Greenwald, published by The Davis Vanguard, on October 9, 2023.
GIST: "Tony Serra, Curtis Briggs, Marshall Hammons and others have been fighting to get him a new trial and now Judge Arlan Harrell, of Fresno County, has granted him an evidentiary hearing.
In a one-page order, Judge Harrell wrote that “the Court finds that ‘there is a reasonable likelihood that [Petitioner] may be entitled to relief.’”
The matter is set for a status conference on October 27.
Vanguard spoke to Curtis Briggs, one of the lead attorneys in the case along with the legendary Tony Serra.
He explained an evidentiary hearing “is a space and time that opens up in front of the judge where he can actually give or determine whether something has value as evidence.”
It is basically a bench trial where the judge will then determine whether the new evidence is sufficient to warrant a new trial.
Briggs continued, saying “an evidentiary hearing literally opens up a seat on the witness stand and gives us the power to bring witnesses and make them answer questions in front of the judge to explain the documentation, the evidence, and bring their own testimony so that the judge can actually consider this stuff.”
There are two pieces of key evidence that Briggs believes they “can and will prevail on.”
The first is ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) by the trial counsel. He said while there was serious prosecutorial misconduct, “we believe that an even semi-diligent defense attorney would have immediately noticed this at the trial court level. And we think that that’s the most realistic way we can prevail.”
Second is that they want the judge to look at the evidence that the gun was planted, that the original prosecutor had lied to the court, and was attempting to frame Stankewitz.
Briggs thinks that might be a tougher sell: “I think politically, to the extent the judge is influenced by pressure politics or local politics, I think IAC is the most viable chance we have.”
Briggs said, “I certainly believe there was enough evidence that it could have been misconduct, that it could have and should have been pursued at trial by defense counsel, but defense counsel didn’t do their job and discover that.”
Their goal is to get him a new trial. That resets the burden and puts it back on the DA’s office.
Moreover, Briggs does not believe they can retry Stankewitz at that point given the amount of time that has lapsed and the age of the witnesses from the original trial.
“Nobody remembers anything. There’s documents missing. There’s a substantial proof of misconduct, so they can’t really rely on trial transcripts because there was a whole ton of things that weren’t brought to light at that point,” he explained.
The original trial prosecutor was James Ardaiz.
“James Ardaiz is the lead prosecutor in the first trial who lied to the court, tried to frame the chief originally, and that trial was overturned. And Ardaiz went on to become the presiding judge of the fifth Appellate District and became this powerful judge, powerful force in Fresno,” Briggs explained.
Briggs explained that they moved for a gag order on Ardaiz when they came onto the case.
Briggs noted that Ardaiz got the death penalty reinstated and, in fact, Briggs said they believe that Stankewitz was the first death penalty prosecution after the death penalty was legalized again in California.
“You have this really aggressive prosecutor, first death prosecution, and he does everything,” Briggs explained. “He’s dirty as hell. All the misconduct basically happens on his watch, gets his conviction.”
As explained by Briggs, the motion was brought in response to Ardaiz’s statement to the Bee defending the initial conviction of Stankewitz.
The article from 2016, quoted Ardaiz as saying that he had no doubt that Stankewitz killed the victim.
He said, “Doug Stankewitz did what I convicted him of doing—a cold-blooded, premeditated murder.”
In the motion, Briggs charged, “Ardaiz poses an ongoing threat to Stankewitz’s fair trial rights. Ardaiz’s conduct, if unrestrained, jeopardizes the public’s confidence in the judiciary; Ardaiz’s conduct threatens the autonomy of this Court; all of which are against fundamental concepts of an accused’s fair trial rights and due process in violation of the California and United States Constitutions.”
Briggs added, “Instead of expressing any concern for whether he was misled or not, thereby having taken a part in the wrongful conviction of Chief, Ardaiz essentially told the readers of the Fresno Bee that no matter what a witness says in this matter, and no matter how the evidence unfolds under the adversarial test, Chief should remain on Death Row because Ardaiz said so.""
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
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